Incidence of complete atrioventricular block following attempted radiofrequency catheter modification of the atrioventricular node in 880 patients: Results of the Multicenter European Radiofrequency Survey (MERFS)

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Abstract
The Multicenter European Radiofrequency Survey (MERFS) retrospectively analysed the incidence of procedurerelated complications in 4463 patients who had undergone radiofrequency catheter ablation in 69 European institutions between 1987 and 1992. Of these 4463 patients, 880 underwent modification of the atrioventricular node to cure atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia. This report presents a detailed analysis of the incidence of complete atrioventricular block with respect to the target site and the number of patients reported per institution. The most common complication of modification of the atrioventricular node was the unintended induction of complete atrioventricular block (41 of 880 patients, 4.7%). In 684 of 880 patients (78%), detailed information about the approached target site for modification of the atrioventricular node was available. Complete atrioventricular block occurred significantly more often in patients who under went ablation of the fast pathway (19/361, 5 3%)or in whom ablation of the slow and fast pathway was attempted after failure at the initial site (4/25, 16%) than in patients who underwent slow pathway ablation (6/298, 20%, P30 patients (group TI: n=354; 2.3% PP<0.05) and also tended to be higher after slow pathway ablation in group I(2.4% in group I vs 1.5% in group II; P=ns)

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