American College of Cardiology; American Heart Association Task Force; European Society of Cardiology Committee for Practice Guidelines. ACC/AHA/ESC 2006 guidelines for management of patients with ventricular arrhythmias and the prevention of sudden cardiac death: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force and the European Society of Cardiology Committee for Practice Guidelines (Writing Committee to Develop Guidelines for Management of Patients With Ventricular Arrhythmias and the Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death).

The purpose this document is to update and combine the previously published recommendations into one source approved by the major cardiology organizations in the United States and Europe. We have consciously attempted to create a streamlined document, not a textbook, that would be useful specifically to locate recommendations on the evaluation and treatment of patients who have or may be at risk for ventricular arrhythmias. Thus, sections on epidemiology, mechanisms and substrates, and clinical presentations are brief, because there are no recommendations for those sections. For the other sections, the wording has been kept to a minimum, and clinical presentations have been confined to those aspects relevant to forming recommendations.