The handling of patients with malign ventricular arrhythmia, since 1979, can count on intracardiac electrophysiological studies, cardiac mapping and unconventional cardiac surgery. Such service, which requires the use of sophisticated equipment and specialized professionals, is being provided to patients from all over the country and from all social strata. The Hospital, which maintains the costly, infrastructure required to provide such service, is interested in knowing the reach of the therapeutic action, going beyond the mere knowledge of the success in the immediate treatment. In order to situate the patient as well as his family and social relations, a Social Service professional has been appointed, and same, from a group of 37 patients under treatment (there were 15 deaths), has selected for the survey 17 residents in the metroplitan region of São Paulo, because of contact with them was easier. Evaluation of the changes in the quality of life of the patients that have undergone surgery has been structured in such a way to detail the research procedure, treatment of the data and discussion of the results. Thus, an attempt has been made to characterize the extent of the benefits obtained in the surgeries, at the individual, familiar and social level. Basicaly, in the group of patients surveyed, 70% have been identified as males, 70% as married, 65% older than 50 years, 76% associated to the social security system, 70% with primary level schooling and thus a low family income (1.6 minimum wages per capita).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)