Reduction of Fluoroscopy Time and Radiation Dosage During Catheter Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation

Radiofrequency catheter ablation has become the treatment of choice for atrial fibrillation (AF) that does not respond to antiarrhythmic drug therapy. During the procedure, fluoroscopy imaging is still considered essential to visualise catheters in real-time. However, radiation is often ignored by p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Arrhythmia & electrophysiology review 2016-08, Vol.5 (2), p.144-149
Main Authors: Yamagata, Kenichiro, Aldhoon, Bashar, Kautzner, Josef
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ablation
Cardiac arrhythmia
Catheters
Diagnostic Electrophysiology & Ablation
Energy
Health hazards
Laboratories
Patients
Physicians
Radiation
Skin
X-rays
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Summary:Radiofrequency catheter ablation has become the treatment of choice for atrial fibrillation (AF) that does not respond to antiarrhythmic drug therapy. During the procedure, fluoroscopy imaging is still considered essential to visualise catheters in real-time. However, radiation is often ignored by physicians since it is invisible and the long-term risks are underestimated. In this respect, it must be emphasised that radiation exposure has various potentially harmful effects, such as acute skin injury, malignancies and genetic disease, both to patients and physicians. For this reason, every electrophysiologist should be aware of the problem and should learn how to decrease radiation exposure by both changing the setting of the system and using complementary imaging technologies. In this review, we aim to discuss the basics of X-ray exposure and suggest practical instructions for how to reduce radiation dosage during AF ablation procedures.
ISSN:2050-3369
2050-3377
DOI:10.15420/AER.2016.16.2