Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Introduction: Atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia is the most common form of paroxistic supraventricular tachycardia, without structural cardiopathy. The majority of patients present this kind of arrhythmia in the fourth or fifth decade of life. The election medical treatment is radiofrequency catheter ablation therapy.
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to demonstrate de effectiveness and safety of radiofrequency catheter ablation therapy in the treatment of atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia, as well as to indicate factors that may determinate its success.
Material and Methods: Of the 219 patients with atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia subjected to the radiofrequency catheter ablation therapy, 59 were male and 160 were female. The mean age was 44±15 years, with a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 81 years. 216 patients were subjected to the slow pathway ablation and 3 to the fast pathway ablation.
Results: A 99,7% prevalence of success was documented, being the insuccess nearly 10 times higher in males. The pathway most subjected to ablation was the slow conduction one (98,6%), having occurred just one case of atrioventricular block after the slow pathway ablation (0,6%).
Discussion: The success prevalence was very high. The only case of block and the fact of just 3 subjects did the fast pathway ablation, lead to the impossibility of evaluate a direct relation between the type of pathway ablated and the occurrence of atrioventricular blocks.
Conclusions: Globally, results show that radiofrequency catheter ablation therapy has a high efficacy and safety in atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia treatment, which justifies its growing clinical implementation.
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