Optimal Lesion Size Index for Pulmonary Vein Isolation in High-Power Radiofrequency Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation

BACKGROUND: Although both high-power (HP) ablation and lesion size index (LSI) are novel approaches to make effective lesions during pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) for atrial fibrillation (AF), the optimal LSI in HP ablation for PVI is still unclear. Our study sought to explore the association between LSI and acute conduction gap formation and investigate the optimal LSI in HP ablation for PVI. METHODS: A total of 105 consecutive patients with AF who underwent HP ablation guided by LSI (LSI-guided HP) for PVI in our institute between June 2019 and July 2020 were retrospectively enrolled. Each ipsilateral PV circle was subdivided into four segments, and ablation power was set to 50 W with target LSI values at 5.0 and 4.0 for anterior and posterior walls, respectively. We compared the LSI values with and without acute conduction gaps after the initial first-pass PVI. RESULTS: PVI was achieved in all patients, and the incidence of first-pass PVI was 78.1% (82/105). A total of 6,842 lesion sites were analyzed, and the acute conduction gaps were observed in 23 patients (21.9%) with 45 (0.7%) lesion points. The gap formation was significantly associated with lower LSI (3.9 ± 0.4 vs. 4.6 ± 0.4, p < 0.001), lower force-time integral (82.6 ± 24.6 vs. 120.9 ± 40.4 gs, p < 0.001), lower mean contact force (5.7 ± 2.4 vs. 8.5 ± 2.8 g, p < 0.001), shorter ablation duration (10.5 ± 3.6 vs. 15.4 ± 6.4 s, p < 0.001), lower mean temperature (34.4 ± 1.4 vs. 35.6 ± 2.6°C, p < 0.001), and longer interlesion distance (4.4 ± 0.3 vs. 4.3 ± 0.4 mm, p = 0.031). As per the receiver operating characteristic analysis, the LSI had the highest predictive value for gap formation in all PVs segments, with a cutoff of 4.35 for effective ablation (sensitivity 80.0%; specificity 75.4%, areas under the curve: 0.87). The LSI of 4.55 and 3.95 had the highest predictive value for gap formation for the anterior and posterior segments of PVs, respectively. CONCLUSION: Using LSI-guided HP ablation for PVI, more than 4.35 of LSI for all PVs segments showed the best predictive value to avoid gap formation for achieving effective first-pass PVI. The LSI of 4.55 for the anterior wall and 3.95 for the posterior wall were the best cutoff values for predicting gap formation, respectively.