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General Anesthesia is Not Superior to Local Anesthesia for Remote Magnetic Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation
Author(s) -
BUN SOKSITHIKUN,
LATCU DECEBAL GABRIEL,
ALLOUCHE EMNA,
ERRAHMOUNI ABDELKARIM,
SAOUDI NADIR
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
pacing and clinical electrophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.686
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1540-8159
pISSN - 0147-8389
DOI - 10.1111/pace.12533
Subject(s) - medicine , ablation , atrial fibrillation , catheter ablation , fluoroscopy , ablation of atrial fibrillation , anesthesia , catheter , cardiology , surgery
Background Remote magnetic navigation is an emerging technology for atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation. General anesthesia (GA) has shown to be superior to local anesthesia (LA) for manual AF ablation in terms of catheter stability and lesion formation. We aimed at comparing GA with LA for remote magnetic AF ablation procedures. Methods All patients eligible for a remote magnetic ablation of AF were included in this study. Ninety patients (70% of the patients were male; age: 60 ± 10 years; CHA 2 DS 2 ‐VAS C : 1.6 ± 1.2; paroxysmal AF: 60%, persistent AF: 40%), including 45 patients with GA, and 45 patients with LA were enrolled consecutively. Results There was no significant difference in total procedure time between the two groups (237 ± 50 minutes in the GA group vs 240 ± 61 minutes in the LA group; P = 0.84). Fluoroscopy time was significantly increased in the GA group (14.6 ± 6 minutes vs 11.6 ± 6 minutes, P = 0.018). Ablation time was not different between the two groups (2,320 ± 984 seconds in the GA group vs 2,055 ± 1,023 seconds in the LA group; P = 0.25). After a mean follow‐up of 1 year (including repeat procedures), 39/45 patients (86.6%) within the GA group were free from recurrences versus 40/45 patients (88.8%) in the LA group (P = 0.74) without antiarrhythmic drugs. Conclusion For remote magnetic AF ablation, procedures under LA have similar results to GA in terms of efficacy and safety after 1‐year follow‐up.