Prognosis
Catheter ablation of most arrhythmias has an extremely high success rate. Success rates for WPW syndrome have been as high as 95% For SVT and atrial flutter, the success rates are 95-98%. For automatic atrial tachycardias, the success rates are 70-90%. The potential complications include bleeding, blood clots, pericardial tamponade, and heart block, but these risks are very low, ranging from 0.5-3%.
For atrial fibrillation, several experienced teams of electrophysiologists in US heart centers claim they can achieve up to a 75% success rate. However one recent study claims that the success rates are in fact much lower. Single procedure success rates have been published in this study at 28%. Often, several procedures are needed to raise the success rate to the 70-80% range. One reason for this may be that once the heart has undergone atrial remodeling as in the case of chronic atrial fibrillation sufferers, largely 50 and older it is much more difficult to correct the 'bad' electrical pathways. Young AF sufferers with paroxysmal, or intermittent AF, therefore have an increased chance of success with an ablation since their heart has not undergone atrial remodeling yet.
Read more about this topic: Catheter Ablation