SynthesisEuropace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology2025
Sedation vs. general anaesthesia in patients with atrial fibrillation undergoing catheter ablation: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Europace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Single-shot ablation for AF: Real-world procedural and one-year outcomes with the newly adopted PulseSelect PFA compared with cryoballoon from the 1STOP project.Journal of interventional cardiac electrophysiology : an international journal of arrhythmias and pacing · 2026Article
- Sedation Strategies, Drugs, and Protocols Used in Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation: A Focused Review.Reviews in cardiovascular medicine · 2026Review
- Monitored anaesthesia care without endotracheal intubation and general anaesthesia in pulsed field atrial fibrillation ablation.European heart journal open · 2026Article
- Advent of Pulsed Field Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation: State-of-the-Art Review.Reviews in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsCatheter ablation is the standard treatment for symptomatic atrial fibrillation (AF) and can be performed under general anaesthesia (GA) or varying levels of sedation to optimize patient comfort and lesion formation. However, the effect of different anaesthesia strategies on AF recurrence rates remains uncertain. METHODS AND
resultsWe systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, and ClinicalTrials.gov for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies comparing outcomes of catheter ablation under GA vs. sedation (including deep, moderate, and conscious sedation). We pooled risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) with a random effects model. R version 4.4.1 was used for statistical analyses. Our systematic review and meta-analysis included 6 RCTs and 17 observational studies, corresponding to 12 302 patients assigned to either sedation (n = 8952) or GA (n = 3350). There was no difference in recurrence of atrial tachyarrhythmias (ATAs) between groups (RR 1.15; 95% CI 0.97-1.36; P = 0.10; 95% prediction interval 0.66-2.01). There was no significant subgroup interaction in the recurrence of AF according to sedation type (conscious vs. mild vs. moderate sedation vs. deep sedation) (P = 0.20) or AF type (persistent AF vs. non-persistent) (P = 0.20).
conclusionIn patients undergoing catheter ablation for AF, there was no significant difference in recurrence of ATA between GA and sedation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.