Long Term Results of Catheter Ablation in Supraventricular Paroxismal Tachycardias (Latvian Centre of Cardiology Experience)

The aim: To evaluate the effectiveness of RFCA, as well as prevalence of adverse effects, cardiovascular events and the change in self-assessed quality of life after the RFCA.

Materials and methods: 244 patients diagnosed with AVNRT or WPW syndrome and hospitalized from October 2014 to December 2016 for RFCA treatment were included.

Results: 186 patients with AVNRT were enrolled, 160 (86%) were reached for follow-up. 58 patients of WPW syndrome were included, out of them 44 (75.9%) were reached for follow-up. Right side accessory pathway ablation was performed in 26, left side – in 31 cases. Relapse of SVT was proven in 3 (6.8%) patients with WPW and 4 (2.5%) – with AVNRT, which is compatible with major studies. The procedure was curative in 93.2% of the cases for WPW syndrome and in 97.5% for AVNRT. Adverse effects were noticed in 8 (5%) patients in the AVNRT group. 3 (1.9%) had AV delay, in 1 (0.63%) case pacemaker implantation was required after 2 years. Cardiovascular events were registered in 7 cases during the follow-up. Self – assessed quality of life in scale from 1 to 10 improved from 5 (IQR 6-4) to 9 (IQR 9-8) for AVNRT patients (p<0.001) and to 8.5 (IQR 9-7) for WPW patients (p<0.001).

Conclusion: The assessed efficiency, subsequent cardiovascular events as well as frequency of relapses in this study coincides with the tendencies shown previously in major studies, while demonstrating better outcomes in safety by not reaching the complication rate of foregoing studies. The procedure has a crucial impact on the quality of life in patients with AVNRT and WPW syndrome. Experience of RFCA performance in Latvian Cardiology Center is compatible with that of other centers analyzed in published studies and seems to surpass them in periprocedural safety.