Does left atrial appendage closure with the WATCHMAN device have high implant success and low peri-procedural risk in patients with high stroke and bleeding risk?
Left atrial appendage closure with the WATCHMAN device is associated with high implant success and low peri-procedural risk in high-risk patients, driven by improvements in implantation techniques.
Left atrial appendage closure with the WATCHMAN device has a high success rate in complete LAAC with low peri-procedural risk, even in a population with a higher risk of stroke and bleeding, and multiple co-morbidities. Improvement in implantation techniques has led to a reduction of peri-procedural complications previously limiting the net clinical benefit of the procedure.
Boersma et al. (2016) studied this question.