Why the study?
Despite advances in imaging and ablation, esophageal injury still occurs with high frequency during AF ablation, remaining an important clinical concern.
Do esophageal protection techniques (such as active cooling and displacement) prevent esophageal injury in patients undergoing catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation?
Do esophageal protection techniques (such as active cooling and displacement) prevent esophageal injury in patients undergoing catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation?
This review highlights the ≈15% risk of esophageal injury during AF ablation and discusses protective techniques such as active cooling and displacement.
Esophageal injury risk in AF ablation warrants ongoing caution; leaves open optimal protection technique efficacy.
Esophageal injury still occurs with high frequency during ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF). The purpose of this study is to provide a review of methods to protect the esophagus from injury during AF ablation. Despite advances in imaging and ablation, the potential risk of esophageal injury during AF ablation remains an important concern with a high occurrence of esophageal injury (≈15%). There have been numerous studies evaluating varied techniques for esophageal protection including active cooling and displacement of the esophagus. These techniques are reviewed in this manuscript as well as the role of esophageal protection in managing patients undergoing AF ablation procedure.
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Houmsse et al. (2021) studied this question.
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