title: General anesthesia is not superior to local anesthesia for remote magnetic ablation of atrial fibrillation.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Remote magnetic navigation is an emerging technology for atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation. General anesthesia (GA) has shown to be superior to local anesthesia (LA) for manual AF ablation in terms of catheter stability and lesion formation. We aimed at comparing GA with LA for remote magnetic AF ablation procedures.
  
  
  METHODS
  All patients eligible for a remote magnetic ablation of AF were included in this study. Ninety patients (70% of the patients were male; age: 60 ± 10 years; CHA2 DS2 -VASC : 1.6 ± 1.2; paroxysmal AF: 60%, persistent AF: 40%), including 45 patients with GA, and 45 patients with LA were enrolled consecutively.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was no significant difference in total procedure time between the two groups (237 ± 50 minutes in the GA group vs 240 ± 61 minutes in the LA group; P = 0.84). Fluoroscopy time was significantly increased in the GA group (14.6 ± 6 minutes vs 11.6 ± 6 minutes, P = 0.018). Ablation time was not different between the two groups (2,320 ± 984 seconds in the GA group vs 2,055 ± 1,023 seconds in the LA group; P = 0.25). After a mean follow-up of 1 year (including repeat procedures), 39/45 patients (86.6%) within the GA group were free from recurrences versus 40/45 patients (88.8%) in the LA group (P = 0.74) without antiarrhythmic drugs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  For remote magnetic AF ablation, procedures under LA have similar results to GA in terms of efficacy and safety after 1-year follow-up.
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Cardiology, Princess Grace Hospital, Monaco (Principality).
authors.forename: Sok-Sithikun
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Bun
authors.forename: Decebal Gabriel
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Latcu
authors.forename: Emna
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Allouche
authors.forename: Abdelkarim
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Errahmouni
authors.forename: Nadir
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Saoudi
mesh_terms: D000768:Anesthesia, General; D000772:Anesthesia, Local; D001281:Atrial Fibrillation / Q000601:surgery*; D017115:Catheter Ablation / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005471:Fluoroscopy; D006801:Humans; D060328:Magnetic Phenomena; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: atrial fibrillation; general anesthesia; remote magnetic navigation