Ablation and procedural success
Globally, and excluding the patient in which spontaneous conversion of
AF into AT occurred, ablation of rotors or sites with STD was effective
in 16/17 patients (rotor ablation success : 94.1%); in 6
patients, conversion to sinus rhythm occurred, whereas in the other 10
patients, ablation resulted in stable AT. Table 2 shows details about
the ATs induced in each patient and the ablation strategy performed; 19
macroreentries and 10 microreentries were found; 5 focal ATs appeared.
Considering previous ablations and the index procedure, 11 patients
(61%) had pulmonary vein isolation, and 15 patients (83%) had CTI
ablation.
Procedural success was achieved in 16/18 patients (88.9%). The 2
patients with failed procedure were: the one in which rotor ablation was
not effective and electrical cardioversion was needed (empirical
pulmonary vein isolation plus CTI ablation was performed); and a patient
with successful rotor ablation and subsequent ablation of 2 reentrant
ATs, but inducibility of another AT that was not ablated afterwards (it
was terminated with entrainment maneuvers and no re-inducibility was
attempted). There were no procedural complications. In patients with
mappable reentrant ATs, the rate of procedural success (92.4%; p =
0.639) and procedural complications (11.4%; p = 0.200) were similar.