Safety and cost of outpatient radiofrequency ablation of the slow pathway in patients with atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia

Abstract

Radiofrequency ablation of atrioventricular (AV) nodal reentrant tachycardia has been shown to be an effective and safe treatment and to have a significant cost advantage over other forms of therapy.1 In studies reported to date, patients were hospitalized for 2 to 10 days after slow pathway ablation to monitor for possible complications or a recurrence of the tachycardia.2,3 A previous study reported that radiofrequency ablation of accessory pathways can be performed safely on an outpatient basis,4 but no prior studies evaluated the safety of outpatient radiofrequency ablation of the slow pathway in patients with AV nodal reentrant tachycardia. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety and cost of performing radiofrequency catheter ablation of the slow AV nodal pathway on an outpatient basis.