Introduction: Ventricular extrasystoles (VES) are a type of dysrhythmia that may originate from any point of the ventricular myocardial tissue below the atrioventricular node. They occur both in patients with congenital heart malformations (CHD) and in those without underlying structural cardiac pathology.
Aim: To determine the prognostic significance and the need for therapy in children with VES without underlying structural cardiac pathology by analysing the available literature in PubMed, Google Scholar, the Cochrane Library, and Medscape.
Results: Ventricular extrasystoles (VES) are among the most common rhythm disorders in childhood. They are often detected incidentally, as a large proportion of cases are asymptomatic, but they may also present with various symptoms—from palpitations to syncope. Long-term studies report that most VES have a benign course and show spontaneous regression. Some authors indicate that a higher frequency of VES, the presence of couplets, triplets, ventricular tachycardia (VT), or multifocality are risk factors for the development of left ventricular dysfunction, while others do not find such an association. A small proportion of patients (around 1%) develop cardiomyopathy (CMP) as a result of dyssynchrony. The left ventricular changes leading to reduced ejection fraction (EF) are reversible with timely initiation of medical therapy and/or ablation.
Conclusion: Since there are no clear criteria to predict which patient may develop left ventricular dysfunction, all patients should be periodically monitored for cardiac function.
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