Does periprocedural anticoagulation management of atrial fibrillation affect the prevalence of silent thromboembolic lesion detected by diffusion cerebral magnetic resonance imaging in patients undergoing radiofrequency atrial fibrillation ablation with open irrigated catheters? Results from a prospective multicenter study

Background Silent cerebral ischemia (SCI) has been reported in 14% of cases after catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF) with radiofrequency (RF) energy and discontinuation of warfarin before AF ablation procedures. Objective The purpose of this study was to determine whether periprocedural anticoagulation management affects the incidence of SCI after RF ablation using an open irrigated catheter. Methods Consecutive patients undergoing RF ablation for AF without warfarin discontinuation and receiving heparin bolus before transseptal catheterization (group I, n = 146) were compared with a group of patients who had protocol deviation in terms of maintaining the therapeutic preprocedural international normalized ratio (patients with subtherapeutic INR) and/or failure to receive pretransseptal heparin bolus infusion and/or ≥2 consecutive ACT measurements