Efficacy and Safety of Atrial Fibrillation Ablation Using Remote Magnetic Navigation: Experience from 1,006 Procedures

Abstract

Background The objective of this study was to assess the procedural outcomes of catheter ablation guided by remote magnetic navigation (RMN) in a large cohort of patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) and persistent AF (PerAF). Methods A total of 726 patients (547 male, age: 58.5 ± 10.3 years) with symptomatic AF (61% PAF) were analyzed from a prospective ablation registry. Procedural parameters including pulmonary venous (PV) anatomy, left atrial (LA) volume, procedural time, ablation time, fluoroscopy time, total X-ray dose, and complications were assessed. Results One thousand and six ablation procedures were analyzed. One-third of the patients (240/726) were ablated on more than one occasion, resulting in a mean of 1.3 ± 0.6 times for the entire group. When analyzing all procedures, the mean procedural time and ablation time was 134 ± 35 minutes and 2,130 ± 1,025 seconds, respectively. The mean fluoroscopy time was 5.4 ± 3.7 minutes. Compared to PAF patients, procedural time and ablation time were significantly increased in patients with PerAF by 10% (P < 0.001) and 19% (P < 0.001), respectively. However, fluoroscopy time was not increased (5.3 ± 3.5 minutes, PAF vs. 5.6 ± 4.0 minutes, PerAF, P = 0.17). The overall complication rate was 0.6%. One PAF patient experienced cardiac tamponade. AF repeat ablations by RMN significantly reduced the procedural and ablation times when compared with their first ablation times. Conclusions AF ablation guided by RMN is safe as evidenced by a low complication rate. Fluoroscopy time was relatively short for both PAF and PerAF ablation.