Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. May 26, 2019; 11(5): 149-158
Published online May 26, 2019. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v11.i5.149
Feasibility and safety of cryoballoon ablation for the treatment of atrial fibrillation in patients with congenital heart disease
Sylvia Abadir, Victor Waldmann, Katia Dyrda, Mikael Laredo, Blandine Mondésert, Marc Dubuc, Paul Khairy
Sylvia Abadir, Victor Waldmann, Katia Dyrda, Mikael Laredo, Blandine Mondésert, Marc Dubuc, Paul Khairy, Electrophysiology Service and Adult Congenital Heart Center, Montreal Heart Institute, Université de Montréal, Montreal QC H1T 1C8, Canada
Author contributions: Abadir S and Waldmann V contributed equally as co-first authors; Abadir S, Waldmann V and Khairy P contributed to concept/design, drafting the article, statistics, data collection, data analysis and interpretation; Dyrda K, Laredo M, Mondésert B and Dubuc M critically revised the article; Abadir S, Waldmann V, Dyrda K, Laredo M, Mondésert B, Dubuc M and Khairy P approved the article; Khairy P contributed to funding.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the local institutional review board.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Dr. Dubuc is a consultant for Medtronic CryoCath LP. The authors have no other relevant conflicts of interest to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Paul Khairy, FRCPC, MD, PhD, Full Professor, Electrophysiology Service and Adult Congenital Heart Center, Montreal Heart Institute, Université de Montréal, 5000 Belanger St E, Montreal QC H1T 1C8, Canada. paul.khairy@umontreal.ca
Telephone: +1-514-3763330-3800 Fax: +1-514-5932581
Received: February 3, 2019
Peer-review started: February 11, 2019
First decision: April 16, 2019
Revised: April 19, 2019
Accepted: May 14, 2019
Article in press: May 14, 2019
Published online: May 26, 2019
Processing time: 112 Days and 17.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: A few studies have described radiofrequency ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). Herein, we report the first case series of cryoballoon ablation for the treatment of AF in patients with CHD. Ten patients with CHD, median age 57.9 years, underwent cryoballoon ablation and were followed for a median of 2.8 years. Pulmonary vein isolation was acutely successful in all patients. No major complications occurred. One year after a single procedure, 6 (60%) patients remained AF-free. In conclusion, cryoballoon ablation is feasible and appears to be safe, with an excellent acute success rate and modest 1-year freedom from recurrent AF.