Mapping and ablation of atrial arrhythmias after surgical correction of congenital heart disease guided by a 64-electrode basket catheter

Patients who undergo surgical correction of congenital heart disease are pr one to develop intraatrial reentrant atrial tachycardias (IART) in the earl y and late postsurgery period.(1-5) IART exposes them to serious morbid eve nts such as hemodynamic deterioration, thromboembolic complications, and de ath.(6,7) Radiofrequency ablation has been used to terminate these arrhythm ias with an overall acute success rate of 50% to 87%(8-13) and recurrence r ates up to 53%.(12) it has been suggested that the poorer results of the ra diofrequency ablation in patients with IART after reparative cardiac surger y compared with other cardiac arrhythmias could partially be explained by t he limitations of the conventional mapping and/or ablation techniques.(9,10 ) The purpose of this stud, was to verify whether the use of a multi-electr ode basket catheter (BC), equipped with software to reconstruct isochronal maps, could improve the results of radiofrequency ablation in patients with IART who underwent surgery for congenital heart disease.