We analyzed the resetting response (a noncompensatory pause after electrical stimulation) during 37 hemodynamically tolerated ventricular tachycardias (VTs) induced by programmed electrical stimulation in 32 patients with chronic coronary artery disease. The mean cycle length of VT was 369 +/- 59 msec. Single extrastimuli were delivered at the right ventricular apex during all 37 VTs, and double extrastimuli were delivered at the same site during 23 VTs. The resetting response pattern was considered increasing, decreasing, or flat if the return cycle increased, decreased, or remained constant in response to progressively shorter coupling intervals of the extrastimuli. Ten VTs had an increasing pattern and nine a flat pattern. In 11 VTs the pattern was mixed (flat at longer coupling intervals and increasing at shorter ones), and in the remaining seven the pattern could not be defined. No VT had a decreasing pattern. The mean duration of the resetting interval (range of coupling intervals resulting in resetting) was 66 +/- 45 msec, or 17% of the cycle length of VT. VT with a mixed pattern had longer resetting intervals than VT with an increasing pattern (102 +/- 34 vs 64 +/- 40 msec; p less than .035); however, cycle lengths of VT were similar (370 +/- 58 vs 386 +/- 86, p = NS). An excellent correlation was observed between the shortest return cycles in response to single and double extrastimuli (r = .99), with a mean difference of 5 msec. The cycle length of VT exceeded the return cycle (measured to the QRS onset) during 15 VTs (41%).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)