The aim of this survey was to provide insight into current practice regarding the management of paediatric arrhythmias in Europe. The survey was based on a questionnaire sent via the Internet to the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) electrophysiology research network centres. The following topics were explored: patient and treatment selection, techniques and equipment, treatment outcomes and complications. The vast majority of paediatric arrhythmias concerns children older than 1 year and patients with grown-up congenital heart disease. In 65% of the hospitals there is a specialized paediatric centre, and the most commonly observed arrhythmias include Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome and atrioventricular nodal re-entry tachycardias (90.24%). The medical staff performing paediatric catheter ablations in Europe are mainly adult electrophysiology teams (82.05% of the centres). Radiofrequency is the preferred energy source used for paediatric arrhythmia ablation. Catheter ablation is only chosen if two or more antiarrhythmic drugs have failed (94.59% of the centres). The majority of the centres use flecainide (37.8%) or atenolol (32.4%) as their first choice drug for prevention of recurrent supraventricular arrhythmias. While none of the centres performed catheter ablation in asymptomatic infants with pre-excitation, 29.7% recommend ablation in asymptomatic children and adolescents. The preferred choice for pacemaker leads in infants less than 1 year old is implantation of epicardial leads in 97.3% of the centres, which continues to be the routine even in patients between 1 and 5 years of age as reported by 75.68% of the hospitals. Almost all centres (94.59%) report equally small number of complications of catheter ablation in children (aged 1-14 years) as observed in adults.
Keywords: Ablation; Arrhythmia; Children; Congenital heart disease; EHRA survey; EP wire; Pacing; Paediatric; Supraventricular tachycardia.
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