Introduction:
Recent studies have shown catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients with heart failure (HF) to have better outcomes over medical therapy. While AF ablation is predominantly an outpatient procedure, some patients may require longer hospitalization. Limited literature exists describing the trends of hospitalizations for HF patients undergoing AF ablation.
Methods:
Using ICD-9 (diagnosis and procedure codes) in nationwide inpatient sample database 2003 to 2014, we identified all HF adults who were admitted with a principal diagnosis code of AF (427.31) (n= 4,670,400) (AF-HF). Among these, we identified those with a principal procedure code of catheter ablation (37.34) and studied the temporal trends of clinical characteristics and outcomes (in-hospital mortality and complications) for this cohort (Table).
Results:
The overall number of AF-HF patients undergoing AF ablation was 62,653; with an increase from 1,928 in 2003 to 6,860 in 2014 (p trend<0.001). As shown in Table, over this 12-year period; mean age and proportion of females decreased, while there was an increase in blacks, clinical comorbidity burden, admissions to teaching hospitals and southern US region (all p trend<0.001). The overall procedure related complications (vascular, cardiac, respiratory, neurologic) increased, the in-hospital mortality rate decreased from 1.7% to 0.5% (all p trend<0.001).
Conclusions:
During 2003-2014, the annual incidence of AF ablation related hospitalizations in HF patients increased significantly. Despite increase in clinical comorbidities burden and procedural complication rates, the mortality rate declined.
Temporal trends in availability and efficacy of catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter in a highly populated urban area