Atrial conduction delay predicts atrial fibrillation in paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia patients after radiofrequency catheter ablation

This study aimed to assess whether intra- and inter-atrial conduction delay could predict atrial fibrillation (AF) for paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT) patients after successful treatment by radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA). Echocardiography examination was performed on 524 consecutive PSVT patients (15 patients were excluded). Left atrial dimension, right atrial diameter and intra- and inter-atrial conduction delay were measured before ablation. Patients were divided into group A (n = 32): occurrence of AF after the ablation and group B (n = 477): remained in sinus rhythm during follow-up. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to estimate the predictive value of intra- and inter-atrial conduction delay. Both intra- and inter-atrial conduction delay were higher in group A than in group B (4.79 ± 0.30 msec vs. 4.56 ± 0.32 msec; 21.98 ± 1.32 msec vs. 20.01 ± 1.33; p < 0.05). Binary logistic regression analysis showed that intra- and inter-atrial conduction were significant influential factors for the occurrence of AF (odds ratio [OR] = 13.577, 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.469-48.914; OR = 2.569, 95% CI, 1.909-3.459, p < 0.05). The ROC cure analysis revealed that intra-atrial conduction delay ≥ 4.45 msec and inter-atrial conduction delay ≥ 20.65 were the most optimal cut-off value for predicting AF in PSVT patients after RFCA. In conclusion, this is the first study to show that the intra- and inter-atrial conduction delay could effectively predict AF in post-ablation PSVT patients.