Reviews Radiofrequency Ablation of Supraventricular Tachyarrhythmias

The goal in catheter ablation is to permanently and safely interrupt the tachycardia circuit responsible for a particular arrhythmia. It has been used as a treatment for supraventricular arrhythmias since 1982. Since radiofrequency energy was introduced for ablation, safe treatment of supraventricular tachycardia has become commonplace. The ease of control of lesion formation and the relatively small lesion size have led to the excellent safety profile observed in the clinical application of this technique. It is now widely and successfully used to interrupt atrioventricular conduction, to modify atrioventricular function and eliminate atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia without the necessity of permanent pacemaker implantation. In addition, ablation of accessory pathyways can be accomplished with high degree of success. Finally, catheter ablation of supraventricular tachycardia is a well established therapeutic option in selected patients with supraventricular tachycardia refractory to pharmacologic therapy.