Use of contact force technology for cardiac arrhythmia ablation in children

New techniques for cardiac arrhythmia ablation, such as contact force (CF) technology, have emerged recently. These catheters provide information about adequate tissue contact for optimal lesions. In adults, these techniques have shown greater accuracy, reduced arrhythmia recurrence and complications, and higher success rates. However, data on pediatric patients are limited.

The purpose of this study was to describe the experience with arrhythmia ablation using CF catheters in the pediatric population.

A retrospective cross-sectional descriptive study of all patients <18 years old undergoing cardiac 3-dimensional mapping and ablation with CF between March 2016 and June 2022 was performed.

A total of 321 patients were included (51.40% male; mean age 12.26 years). The most frequent arrhythmia were supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) mediated by accessory pathways (APs) (atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia in 82.24%, ventricular arrhythmia in 11.21%, atrial tachycardia in 5.92%). Mean procedural time was 2.86 ± 1.2 hours, and average contact used was 14.33g ± 6.88g. The success rate of ablation was 97.82% with a low risk of complications.

This is the largest published series of CF technology use in patients <18 years old. In the pediatric population, CF ablation is a safe procedure with high success rates and can be used for most arrhythmic substrates. The most frequent tachycardia observed in this study was SVT mediated by APs. Contact with 14g is safe and yields an excellent outcome in children. The presence of structural heart anomalies and previous ablation procedures decreased the success rate.