Reduction of radiation exposure in catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation: Lesson learned

Figure 1 Histogram of fluoroscopy time (in minutes) for the whole procedure of pulmonary vein isolation in four cohorts of patients with atrial fibrillation, using the non-fluoroscopic CARTO system with progressively new technologies and protocols. There is a progressive and significant reduction in fluoroscopy time, but the greatest percent reduction (-48%) is observed between the second and third cohort, CARTO 3 early vs CARTO 3 late. In these two cohorts the technology was the same, but in the second one the system was used with an optimized protocol to reduce fluoroscopy. ^bP < 0.001 vs the previous cohort; ^dP < 0.0001 vs the previous cohort. CFS: Contact force sensing.