Key words
Cardiac arrhythmias, ablation, quality of life, children
BACKGROUND
Cryoablation and radiofrequency catheter ablation have progressively become a standard of care for treating pediatric arrhythmias. While many studies have demonstrated their efficacy in eliminating the arrhythmia substrate, few have evaluated their impact on quality of life, which is the purpose of this study.
METHODS
Pediatric patients, aged between 6 and 18 years, who underwent cardiac arrhythmia ablation between 2011 and 2018 were eligible for this study. In total, 44 families participated in this non-interventional single-center prospective study and returned the quality of life questionnaires inspired from the KIDSCREEN and PedsQL questionnaires. The chi-squared test was used to test the difference in quality of life between before and after ablation, and data from the patients’ medical records were analyzed.
RESULTS
A statistically significant improvement (p < 0.0001) of all but one aspect of the quality of life was found in patients after ablation. Additionally, the medical record analysis showed that this improvement was associated with fewer symptoms, a decreased need for cardiac follow-up, lower use of antiarrhythmic drugs, and less restriction of physical activities. Age- and sex-specific analyses both showed an improvement in children’s quality of life following ablation (p < 0.001). The perception of the change in quality of life following ablation seems to differ depending on the type of arrhythmia, but the subgroups presented differences in comorbidity and number of patients that complicated the interpretation of the results.
CONCLUSION
The increasing experience in pediatric catheter ablation as well as the constant technical advances have led to improved success rates and decreased complication rates. This brings clinicians to consider ablation as a first-line therapy for children suffering from cardiac arrhythmias, even when the only motive is the improvement of the child’s quality of life.