Arrhythmia Inducibility Versus Elimination of Dormant PV Conduction as a Procedural Endpoint of Catheter Ablation for Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation: a Prospective Randomized Trial

Despite intensive efforts to increase single procedure success rates of pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF), an arrhythmia-free surveillance has not raised beyond 80%. This prospective, randomized study investigates the efficacy of two different procedural endpoints in terms of single-procedure arrhythmia-free outcome.

A total number of 152 patients undergoing de-novo catheter ablation for paroxysmal AF will be randomized to two different treatment arms. In group-A patients, PVI will be performed with the patient either in spontaneous or induced AF. If AF will not terminate with PVI, ablation will be continued by targeting extra-PV AF sources with the desired endpoint of termination to sinus rhythm (SR). The ablation procedure in group-B patients consists of PVI exclusively, regardless to the underlying rhythm. In this group, all isolated PVs will be challenged to adenosine administration in the attempt to reveal and ablate dormant conduction. The primary endpoint is arrhythmia-free survival during a follow-up of 1 year.