Introduction: Catheter ablation (CA) has emerged as the preferred modality of treatment for many cardiac arrhythmias. Anatomical sites of ablation are often located in close proximity to coronary arteries. However, the incidence of CA-related coronary injury has not been well studied. We sought to systematically evaluate all cases of CA-related coronary injuries.
Methods and results: A PubMed search was conducted from inception until May 1, 2017 using the keywords "coronary artery" and "ablation." We identified 2817 published articles of which 43 articles met our inclusion criteria representing 61 cases of coronary artery injury attributed to CA procedures from 1992 to 2017. Posteroseptal accessory pathway ablation was associated with the highest incidence of coronary injury (35.6% of cases), followed by cavotricuspid isthmus-dependent flutter (19.3%). The right coronary artery was the site of injury in over two-thirds of all reported cases. Coronary injury was detected intraprocedurally in about half of the cases (43.1%), whereas it was a delayed presentation in the other half. Coronary intervention was performed in a third of all cases (32.7%). There were a total of three deaths attributed to coronary artery injury.
Conclusions: Most (91.8%) coronary injuries are a result of anatomic proximity to the site of ablation. Awareness of the relation between coronary artery course and anatomical site of ablation could prevent myocardial damage and improve procedural safety.
Keywords: atrial flutter; catheter ablation; complications; coronary artery injury; myocardial infarction; ventricular tachycardia.
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