Trial reportJournal of interventional cardiac electrophysiology : an international journal of arrhythmias and pacing2024
Cryoballoon pulmonary vein isolation as first-line treatment of typical atrial flutter: long-term outcomes of the CRAFT trial.
Trial report in Journal of interventional cardiac electrophysiology : an international journal of arrhythmias and pacing, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- Beyond speed: why "skin-to-skin" time should not define quality in atrial fibrillation ablation.Journal of interventional cardiac electrophysiology : an international journal of arrhythmias and pacing · 2026Review
- Impact of pulmonary vein isolation on atrial arrhythmias in patients with typical atrial flutter: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.European heart journal open · 2025Article
- How to demonstrate the advantage of cryoballoon pulmonary vein isolation over cavotricuspid isthmus ablation in patients with typical atrial flutter.Journal of interventional cardiac electrophysiology : an international journal of arrhythmias and pacing · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
21 authors at 12 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundCRAFT was an international, multicentre, randomised controlled trial across 11 sites in the United UK and Switzerland. Given the evidence that pulmonary vein triggers may be responsible for atrial flutter (AFL) as well as atrial fibrillation (AF), we hypothesised that cryoballoon pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) would provide greater symptomatic arrhythmia reduction than cavotricuspid isthmus (CTI) ablation, whilst also reducing the subsequent burden of AF. Twelve-month outcomes were previously reported. In this study, we report the extended outcomes of the CRAFT study to 36 months.
methodsPatients with typical AFL and no evidence of AF were randomised 1:1 to cryoballoon PVI or radiofrequency CTI. All patients received an implantable loop recorder (ILR) for continuous cardiac rhythm monitoring. The primary outcome was time-to-symptomatic arrhythmia recurrence > 30 s. Secondary outcomes included time-to-first-AF episode ≥ 2 min. The composite safety outcome included death, stroke and procedural complications.
resultsA total of 113 patients were randomised to cryoballoon PVI (n = 54) or radiofrequency CTI ablation (n = 59). Ninety-one patients reconsented for extended follow-up beyond 12 months. There was no difference in the primary outcome between arms, with the primary outcome occurring in 12 PVI vs 11 CTI patients (HR 0.97; 95% CI 0.43-2.20; p = 0.994). AF ≥ 2 min was significantly less frequent in the PVI arm, affecting 26 PVI vs 36 CTI patients (HR 0.48; 95% CI 0.29-0.79; p = 0.004). The composite safety outcome occurred in 5 PVI and 6 CTI patients (p = 0.755).
conclusionCryoballoon PVI shows similar efficacy to radiofrequency CTI ablation in reducing symptomatic arrhythmia recurrence in patients presenting with isolated typical AFL but significantly reduces the occurrence of subsequent AF.
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