title: Paediatric radiofrequency ablation experience at a Venezuelan cardiology facility.
abstract: Radiofrequency (RF) ablation is a curative treatment for many different types of cardiac arrhythmias but its application has been more limited in the paediatric population. We here describe RF paediatric ablation experience at a 400-bed University Hospital in a western Venezuelan province and compare it with the results reported in other countries.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred and fifty five patients under 18 years of age who where submitted to RF ablation between 1994 and 2007 were included. The patients were 12.8+/-3.4 year-old (rank: 3-17 years); 59% were female. Nine patients were submitted to more than one procedure. AV nodal re-entrant tachycardia and atrio-ventricular re-entrant tachycardias mediated by accessory pathways made up 83% of the ablations. The overall success rate was 91.5%. In the AV nodal re-entrant tachycardia and atrial flutter, success rate almost reached 100%. Ablation was successful in 93% of the patients with the Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. The overall complication rate was 5% with 0.6% of major complications and 0% death rate. The results were comparable to those recently reported by the cooperative paediatric ablation registry in the United States of America and by a large hospital in Taiwan.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  RF ablation is a curative therapy with a high success rate and very low complication rates in the paediatric population at the Cardiovascular Research Institute of the University Hospital of The Andes in Venezuela.
authors.affiliation: Cardiovascular Research Institute of the University of The Andes, Mérida, Venezuela. ajf@cantv.net
authors.forename: Abdel J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Fuenmayor
authors.forename: Abdel M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Fuenmayor
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001282:Atrial Flutter / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery; D017115:Catheter Ablation; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010138:Pacemaker, Artificial; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D013611:Tachycardia, Atrioventricular Nodal Reentry / Q000401:mortality* / Q000601:surgery*; D014687:Venezuela / Q000453:epidemiology; D014927:Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome / Q000401:mortality* / Q000601:surgery*