Europace Advance Access originally published online on September 22, 2007
Europace 2007 9(11):1064-1068; doi:10.1093/europace/eum162
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ABLATION
Current case mix and results of catheter ablation of regular supraventricular tachycardia: are we giving unrealistic expectations to patients?
Department of Cardiology, St Bartholomews Hospital, Dominion House, West Smithfield, London EC1A 7BE, UK
Aims: Catheter ablation (CA) has become the treatment of choice for regular supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the current clinical results in a large single centre are as good as success rates quoted to patients from published trials and national cardiology society websites.
Methods and Results: We recorded and analysed prospectively the acute and follow-up (FU) results of all CA procedures performed for SVT at our institution over a 2-year period. We compared our results with the success rates of 90–98% for CA quoted in the literature. We performed a total of 547 CA at our institution over 2 years, of which 389 (71%) were for regular SVT. Of these, 71 procedures (18%) were redo procedures. The overall acute procedural success rate was 96.1% (374/389). Follow-up data were available for 367 of 389 (94.3%) procedures. The overall 6-week success rate varied between 74.7 and 91.3% depending on the SVT type (average 83.9%). The FU success rates were lower for redo procedures (47/66, 71.2%) when compared with first ablation (de novo) procedures (261/301, 86.7%), P = 0.003.
Conclusion: Published success rates are much better than current success rates in a large single centre. It is possible that the information regarding outcome given to patients during the consent process is not accurate.
Key Words: Supraventricular tachycardia, Catheter ablation, AVNRT, Typical atrial flutter, Accessory pathway
* Corresponding author. Tel: +44 2076018639; fax: +44 2076018627.E-mail address: r.schilling{at}qmul.ac.uk
Manuscript submitted 24 February 2007. Accepted after revision 5 July 2007.