Periprocedural complications other than thermal oesophageal
lesions (secondary safety endpoints)
Secondary safety endpoints are shown in table 3. Pericardial tamponade
or vascular/groin complications did not occur in any of the therapy
groups. One patient within the high-power group reported a transient
episode of facial palsy, which resolved within minutes, and did not had
any correlations in MR imaging. Discrete pericardial effusion was
reported in two patients in the fixed HPSD group. One of these subjects
developed Dressler’s syndrome with polyserositis after extensive
left-atrial ablation including extensive additional substrate
modification with a resulting total RF-delivery-time of 2300 seconds.
The symptoms and effusions resolved after 5 days on antiphlogistic
treatment. These findings were statistically non-significant.
No steam pops occurred in the delivery of 1706 standard energy and 7462
high-power ablation lesions.
Chest pain was reported frequently after HPSD ablation, mostly described
as breath dependant, starting 1-2 days after the procedure, lasting for
1-2 days in most patients. Some of these patients required
antiphlogistic medication.