Atrial-esophageal fistula is a rare but potentially fatal complication of atrial radiofrequency ablation that can present with bacteremia and be misdiagnosed as endocarditis.
Consider atrial-esophageal fistula in post-ablation bacteremia to avoid endocarditis misdiagnosis; case report leaves open need for incidence and prevention studies.
Atrial-esophageal fistula is a rare but often fatal complication of catheter radiofrequency ablation. Patients occasionally have bacteremia and have been misdiagnosed with endocarditis. Infectious diseases specialists are often consulted and need to be aware of this complication. We report a case of atrial-esophageal fistula after radiofrequency ablation that illustrates the salient features of this illness.
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Siegel et al. (2010) studied this question.
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