Patients with idiopathic non-sustained ventricular arrhythmia who show distinctive ring-shaped left ventricular scarring on cardiac MRI are at particularly high risk of malignant arrhythmic events, a study shows.

US-led researchers say while scarring is known to be associated with such events, those with a ring-like pattern have a threefold higher risk compared with other scarring and an almost 70-fold increased risk compared with no scarring.

The team retrospectively analysed data on nearly 700 patients with apparently idiopathic non-sustained ventricular arrhythmia who had undergone late gadolinium enhanced cardiac MRI (LGE-MRI) as part of their diagnostic work-up.

Data was taken from an international idiopathic ventricular arrhythmia registry which holds information from seven centres across the US, Europe and Japan.