(D-149) Ablation Induced Left Atrial Mechanical Dysfunction Recovers in a Week

Introduction:: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia associated with significant comorbidities. The immediate effects of catheter ablation on left atrial mechanical function and its recovery timeline in patients undergoing ablation for AF are unknown. The mechanical function response to catheter ablation in patients with different types of AF is also not well understood.

Materials and Methods:: A total of 113 AF patients were included in this retrospective study. Each patient had three magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies: one pre-ablation, one immediately post-ablation, and one post-ablation follow-up MRI. We used feature tracking in the MRI cine images to determine left atrial global longitudinal strain (GLS). We evaluated the strain immediately after ablation (within a week after ablation) in a short-term study and three months after ablation (three-month study).

Results, Conclusions, and Discussions:: The immediate post-ablation GLS was significantly lower than the pre-ablation and follow-up GLS in both short-term (11.13 ± 9.02 days) and three-month (69.64 ± 39.64 days) follow-up studies. However, there was no difference between follow-up and pre-ablation GLS. The GLS returned to 95% pre-ablation level within nine days. Paroxysmal AF patients had significantly higher pre-ablation GLS than persistent AF patients in pre-ablation MRIs. Both type AF patients had significantly lower immediate post-ablation GLS than pre-ablation and post-ablation GLS.
The present study suggested a significant drop in GLS immediately after ablation in AF patients who underwent catheter ablation. Left atrial mechanical functions recovered within nine days after ablation. The drop in GLS didn't show a substantial difference between paroxysmal and persistent AF patients.


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