RT-147
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The clinical outcome of patients
with atrial fibrillation after radiofrequency ablation of the atrioventricular junction
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Dubravko Petrac, Berislav Radic,
Duško Hamel, Duro Vukosavic, Vjeran Nikolic.
Department of Arrhythmias and Cardiac Pacing, Sestre Milosrdnice University
Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia
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Introduction
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Several studies have shown that a radiofrequency
catheter ablation of the atrioventricular (AV) junction with implantation of a ventricular
pacemaker is effective treatment for controlling ventricular response in patients with
symptomatic atrial fibrillation (AF) refractory to drug therapy1-4.
However, there are little data comparing clinical outcome of patients with paroxysmal and
patients with chronic AF after radiofrequency ablation5,6.
Theoretically, the negative impact of this procedure should be higher in patients with
paroxysmal AF because they lose the natural AV synchrony and atrial contribution to
ventricular filling in case of ventricular stimulation. On the other hand, the patients
with chronic AF are already without atrial transport function, so the negative influence
of ablation in these patients is manifested by asynergic ventricular contraction due to
ventricular pacing only.
The purpose of this investigation was to prospectively examine the effect of
radio-frequency catheter ablation of the AV junction on the clinical outcome in patients
with AF, comparing patients with paroxysmal to those with chronic AF.
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