ArticleEuropace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology2025
European Heart Rhythm Association survey on the perceived severity of complications in atrial fibrillation ablation: development of a standardized scoring model.
Article in Europace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pulsed Field Ablation for Ventricular Arrhythmias: A Systematic Review and Single-Arm Meta-Analysis.Pacing and clinical electrophysiology : PACE · 2026Pooled it
- Intracardiac Echocardiography during Invasive Electrophysiological Procedures: a Scientific Statement of the European Heart Rhythm Association of the ESC, and the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions of the ESC.Europace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology · 2026Guideline
- Ethanol infusion of the vein of marshall-based strategies for persistent atrial fibrillation: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials.Europace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology · 2026Pooled it
- Contemporary use of oesophageal temperature probes during left atrial ablation: results from an EHRA Scientific Initiatives Committee survey.Europace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology · 2026Article
- Safety of catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation during hospitalization for acute heart failure: a nationwide analysis from the jROAD-dpc database.Europace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology · 2026Article
- Shocked Beyond the Field: Coronary Vasospasm After Remote Pulsed Field Ablation.JACC. Case reports · 2026Article
- Patient-Reported Outcome Measures Following Pulsed-Field Ablation Versus Thermal Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation: The PROMs-PFA Study.Journal of cardiovascular electrophysiology · 2026Article
- Long-term mortality and acute complications after percutaneous pericardiocentesis in cancer and noncancer patients presenting with severe pericardial effusion.Clinical research in cardiology : official journal of the German Cardiac Society · 2026Article
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11 authors.
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Abstract
aimsAtrial fibrillation (AF) ablation is associated with complications. These are sometimes categorized as mild or severe based on unspecified criteria. We conducted a survey of European electrophysiologists (EPs) to rank the perceived complication severity. METHODS AND
resultsA physician-based survey was conducted by the Scientific Initiative Committee of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA). An online questionnaire was created asking EPs to score a list of complications on a scale from 0 (no complication) to 100 (procedural death). Three hundred respondents participated in the survey; however, 105 were excluded due to incomplete responses. Unexplained periprocedural death (90, interquartile range 50-100), atrio-oesophageal fistula (AEF 92, 80-100), procedural stroke (80, 59-89), and tamponade requiring surgery (70, 80-83) were the complications associated with highest scores. Among the intermediate complications, phrenic nerve palsy at discharge (49, 25-67) was ranked similarly to tamponade treated with pericardial puncture (50, 25-70) or periprocedural transient ischaemic attack (50, 25-70). Institutional infrastructural features such as cardiac surgery or stroke units had no impact on the scoring. Most respondents (89%) have experienced cardiac tamponade, procedural stroke (53%), and AEF (25%). When applied retrospectively to existing studies, the proposed EHRA AF ablation safety score demonstrated a trend towards improved AF ablation safety over time.
conclusionThe EHRA complication severity score provides a standardized, quantitative ranking of AF ablation complications, identifying periprocedural death and AEF as the most severe events. Based on the findings, we propose a novel EHRA AF ablation safety score that may contribute to a more objective safety comparison of AF ablation trials.
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