Background: For the past decade, electric pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) has become a procedure implemented worldwide for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. Currently, 2 main approaches are used for PVI: ostial isolation of the PVs and wide antral PVI. The aims of this systematic review are to evaluate the relative merits of each technique with a pooled comparative analysis of efficacy and complications.
Methods and results: Studies were identified by searching electronic databases for studies on ostial versus antral PVI. Information was extracted from each included trial. Odds ratio was the primary measure of treatment effect or side effects. The proportion of patients with recurrences of atrial fibrillation or other atrial tachyarrhythmias was evaluated at the end of the follow-up periods in 12 trials, including 1183 patients. The recurrence rate of total supraventricular arrhythmias was significantly lower in wide antral than in segmental PVI group (odds ratio, 0.42; 95% confidence interval, 0.32-0.56; P<0.00001). Atrial fibrillation recurrence was significantly lower in the wide antral group (odds ratio, 0.33; 95% confidence interval, 0.24-0.46; P<0,00001). A trend toward a higher incidence of left atrial tachycardia occurrence in the wide antral circumferential ablation group was detected, which did not reach statistical significance (odds ratio, 1.53; 95% confidence interval, 0.88-2.69; P=0.13).
Conclusions: Our primary finding is that PVI performed with a wide antral approach is more effective than ostial PVI in achieving freedom from total atrial tachyarrhythmia recurrence at long-term follow-up.
Keywords: atrial fibrillation; atrial fibrillation ablation; pulmonary vein isolation; wide antral.