Abstract
Temperature-controlled radiofrequency catheter ablation was prospectively compared with the power-controlled technique in 53 patients with atrioventricular reciprocating tachycardia or atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia. Patients were randomly assigned to either power-controlled (n = 26) or temperature-controlled (n = 27) ablation after electrophysiologic studies. The groups were comparable in terms of mean age (40 ± 16 versus 44 ± 15 years, p = 0.60), sex (54% versus 52% males, p = 0.88), and type of tachycardia (38% versus 52% atrioventricular reciprocating tachycardia, p = 0.91). Successful ablation was achieved in all patients, and the number of radiofrequency applications required were similar. There were no significant differences between groups in mean fluoroscopy time for initial success (2.1 ± 2.3 minutes versus 1.5 ± 1.2 minutes, p = 0.21), for ablative plus booster doses (6.9 ± 4.7 minutes versus 6.0 ± 3.5 minutes, p = 0.42), or for the entire procedure (13.1 ± 6.9 minutes versus 11.6 ± 4.5 minutes, p = 0.35). It was concluded that power-controlled and temperature-controlled methods of radiofrequency ablation were equally efficacious.
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