Atrioventricular nodal echoes over a wide echo window as a therapeutic end point for the catheter-guided radiofrequency ablation of atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia: a prospective study

摘要

Aims In previous retrospective studies, it was shown that the presence of residual single atrioventricular node (AVN) echoes with an echo zone longer than 30 ms may increase the rate of recurrence after radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of slow pathway in patients with AVN reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT). Based on that, some centres perform additional RFA in these patients. However, this opinion has never been tested prospectively and many centres do not perform re-ablation in these patients. The purpose of this study was to test whether persistence of a single AVN echo over a wide echo zone is a valid end point for RFA.