Risk Factors Associated with Catheter Ablation in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation : A Report from the JROAD-DPC Study

The number of patients with heart failure (HF) and atrial fibrillation (AF) increases as the elderly population grows. ‘Age’ is one of the major concerns and determinants of the indications for catheter ablation (CA) of AF. There are, however, little safety data on CA of AF in accordance with age in Japan. We assessed the safety of CA of AF by a nationwide database (Japanese Registry Of All cardiac and vascular Diseases (JROAD)-DPC). 135,299 AF patients (65±10 years, 38,952 females) who underwent CA in 456 hospitals between April 2012 and March 2018 were studied and divided into the following age groups; <60, 60-65, 65-70, 70-75, 75-80, 80-85, and ≥ 85 years. The overall in-hospital complication rate was 3.4% (cardiac tamponade 1.2%) and in-hospital mortality was 0.04%. Aged patients had a higher prevalence of female sex, lower body mass index, and a higher burden of comorbidities such as hypertension and HF, all those characteristics were predictors for complications in multivariate analysis. A