-Premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) are extra heartbeats that begin in one of your heart’s two lower pumping chambers (ventricles). These extra beats disrupt your regular heart rhythm, sometimes causing you to feel a fluttering or a skipped beat in your chest.
-If you have occasional premature ventricular contractions, but you’re otherwise healthy, there’s probably no reason for concern, and no need for treatment. If you have frequent premature ventricular contractions or underlying heart disease, you might need treatment.
-Having frequent PVCs or certain patterns of them might increase your risk of developing heart rhythm problems (arrhythmias) or weakening of the heart muscle (cardiomyopathy).Rarely, when accompanied by heart disease, frequent premature contractions can lead to chaotic, dangerous heart rhythms and possibly sudden cardiac death.
-An electrocardiogram (ECG) can detect the extra beats and identify the pattern and source.f you have infrequent PVCs, they may not be detected during the brief time a standard ECG is being done. In such cases, you may need to use a portable monitoring device for 24 hours or more to capture any abnormal rhythms.
-For most people, PVCs with an otherwise normal heart won’t need treatment. However, if you have frequent PVCs, your doctor might recommend treatment.
- Lifestyle changes.Eliminating common PVC triggers — such as caffeine or tobacco — can decrease the frequency and severity of your symptoms.
- Beta blockers — which are often used to treat high blood pressure and heart disease — can suppress premature contractions.
- Radiofrequency catheter ablation.For PVCs that don’t respond to lifestyle changes or medications, your doctor might recommend ablation therapy. This procedure uses radiofrequency energy to destroy the area of heart tissue that is causing your irregular contractions.Successful Ablation is a permanent solution for PVC.