Epicardial access facilitated by carbon dioxide insufflation via intentional coronary vein exit: step-by-step description of the technique and review of the literature.

Pericardial access from a subxiphoid approach is often necessary to gain access to a critical epicardial substrate that is inaccessible from the endocardium. Although relatively safe, a rate of up to 5% of acute and 2% delayed complications has been reported. Intentional perforation of a distal coronary vein branch with pericardial insufflation of CO2 to create a negative contrast space anterior to the right ventricle is an emerging approach to facilitate pericardial access. In this report, we describe the technique of intentional coronary vein exit with CO2 insufflation to perform epicardial mapping and ablation of ventricular tachycardia (VT) in a step-by-step approach and review the published literature on this topic.