Catheter ablation in children and young adults: is there an additional benefit from remote magnetic navigation?

PURPOSE: Although rare, children and young adults can suffer from significant cardiac arrhythmia, especially in the context of congenital malformations and after cardiac surgery. METHODS: A total of 62 patients (32 female, median age 20 years) underwent an invasive electrophysiology study between 2008–2011: half had normal cardiac anatomy, whereas the remaining patients had various types of congenital heart disease. All patients were treated using either conventional techniques (CVN) or remote magnetic navigation (RMN). RESULTS: Patients treated with the RMN system differed substantially from patients in the CVN group with respect to presence of congenital heart disease (67 % vs. 37 %), previous cardiac surgery (59 % vs. 20 %) or failed previous conventional ablation (22 % vs. 9 %), respectively. Although these more complex arrhythmias resulted in longer median procedure duration (180 vs. 130 min, p = 0.034), the median overall fluoroscopy exposure in the RMN group was significantly lower (4.1 vs. 5.2 min, p = 0.020). Clinical outcome was comparable in both groups without complications caused by the ablation. CONCLUSIONS: Catheter ablation using remote magnetic navigation is safe and feasible in children and young adults and is especially valuable in patients with abnormal cardiac morphologies. RMN resulted in significantly lower radiation exposure compared with the conventional technique.