TRANSCATHETER ABLATION

Transcatheter ablation using radiofrequency is a procedure that allows the treatment of many arrhythmias and consists in the elimination of the foci or abnormal electrical pathways that are responsible for the arrhythmia itself. The ablation is performed after the electrophysiological study and, in most cases, is performed in the same session. There are different ablation techniques. The main ablation techniques are two, the conventional one in which the catheters are guided inside the heart under the sole control of X-rays and the one with a navigation system that allows the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the heart chambers with a significant reduction in the use of X-rays and greater precision in the localization of the catheters inside the heart compared to the conventional technique. We have different energy sources available to perform the ablation, radiofrequency, cryoenergy (mainly used for pericardial cases) and laser. The complexity and effectiveness of the ablation varies for each type of arrhythmia. We therefore move from relatively simple ablations with a high success rate, such as the ablation of paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardias, to ablations with intermediate complexity, such as ablations for atrial fibrillation and atrial tachycardias, to complex ablations, such as ablations for ventricular tachycardias.