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Impact of ventricular tachycardia ablation on health care utilization
Jeffrey R Winterfield1, Alexander R Kent2, Edward Karst2
1Division of Cardiology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina.
Background:
Catheter ablation of ventricular tachycardia (VT) has been shown to reduce the number of recurrent shocks in patients with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). However, how VT ablation affects postprocedural medical and pharmaceutical usage remains unclear.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in health care resource utilization (HCRU) after VT ablation.
Methods:
This large-scale, real-world, retrospective study used the MarketScan databases to identify patients in the United States with an ICD or cardiac resynchronization therapy-defibrillator (CRT-D) undergoing VT ablation. We calculated cumulative medical and pharmaceutical expenditures, office visits, hospitalizations, and emergency room (ER) visits in the 1-year periods before and after ablation.
Results:
A total of 523 patients met the study inclusion criteria. After VT ablation, median annual cardiac rhythm-related medical expenditures decreased by $5,408. Moreover, the percentage of patients with at least 1 cardiac rhythm-related hospitalization and ER visit decreased from 53% and 41% before ablation to 28% and 26% after ablation, respectively. Similar changes were observed in the number of all-cause hospitalizations and ER visits, but there were no significant changes in all-cause medical expenditures. During the year before VT ablation, there was an increasing rate of health care resource utilization, followed by drastic slowing after ablation.
Conclusion:
This retrospective study demonstrated that catheter ablation seems to reduce hospitalization and overall health care utilization in VT patients with an ICD or CRT-D in place.