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Outcomes of Functional Substrate Mapping Based Ablation in Addition to Pulmonary Vein Isolation in Atrial
Can Menemencioğlu1, Cem Çöteli1, Ahmet Hakan Ateş1
1Hacettepe University, Department of Cardiology, Ankara, Turkey.
Background:
Functional substrate mapping (FSM) enables the identification of slow conduction zones, which may represent critical atrial sites in atrial fibrillation (AF). This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of FSM-guided ablation as an adjunct to pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) and to identify clinical predictors of arrhythmia recurrence in patients with AF.
Methods:
A total of 206 patients [mean age 61 ± 10, 105 (%51) males] with AF who underwent voltage and isochronal late activation mapping (ILAM) during sinus/paced rhythm were retrospectively included. Patients were divided into two groups based on the presence of deceleration zone (DZ) during ILAM: DZ (-) and DZ (+). While patients in the DZ (-) group underwent PVI alone, those in the DZ (+) group received additional ablation lesions targeting the DZs in addition to PVI.
Results:
The mean number of DZs per left atrium was 1.45 ± 0.6. In the DZ (+) patients, 43 ATs were inducible in 35 patients, with 81.4% (35/43) of CIs colocalized with the DZs identified during ILAM. At a median follow-up of 12.5 (8-23) months, atrial arrhythmia-free survival was significantly higher in the DZ (-) group compared to the DZ (+) group (p = 0.004). Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that the presence of DZ (HR: 2.152, 95%CI 1.051-4.404; p = 0.036) was the only significant predictor associated with atrial arrhythmia recurrence.
Conclusions:
DZs identified by ILAM may serve as a critical substrate for AF and targeting these regions as an adjunct to PVI could improve procedural success especially in PAF.
