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Introduction: Antitachycardia pacing (ATP) is one of the therapies provided by an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) for the treatment of ventricular arrhythmias (VA). Successful ATP leads to avoidance of shock, that is related to an increase in mortality and morbidity. Methods and Results: A total of 63 documents have been obtained by using the key term “Antitachycardia pacing” in PubMed, focusing on optimal ATP and ICD programing to reduce inappropriate or avoidable therapies, predictive factors of ATP efficacy and latest technologies and devices still in experimentation. Conclusions: Antitachycardia pacing confirms to be a good therapeutic tool to interrupt ventricular arrhythmias. An optimal ICD programming could lead to the reduction of inappropriate or avoidable ATP therapies. Furthermore, a better knowledge in predictive factors of ATP efficacy not only could better orient physicians on the device to implant, but also could allow for a better arrhythmic risk stratification.

Graphical abstract, Background COVID-19 pandemic impacted on heart failure patients’ lifestyle and quality of life, affecting both physical activity levels and state of health. Methods Demographic data and device records were extracted for patients with heart failure in the 16 weeks at the turn of lockdown during pandemic. To explore the variability across the lockdown period, a week-to-week analysis was performed. Patients were interviewed to investigate physical activity and psychological insights. The primary endpoint was the variation in physical activity at the turn of lockdown. Results At our facility, 2225 patients implanted with a cardiac device were screened and data were collected for 211 patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria. Patients’ physical activity significantly decreased in the lockdown period compared with the control period (active time per day 8.0% vs. 10.8%; relative reduction [RRR] 25.9%; p