IMR Press / RCM / Volume 21 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.31083/j.rcm.2020.02.46
Open Access Case Report
Radiofrequency catheter ablation without radiation exposure in a 13th week pregnant woman with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome
Show Less
1 Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Heart Center of Chonnam National University Hospital, Chonnam National University Medical School, Chonnam National University, 42 Jaebongro, Dong-gu, Gwangju 61469, South Korea
*Correspondence: yoonnamsik@gmail.com (Namsik Yoon)
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2020, 21(2), 303–307; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm.2020.02.46
Submitted: 27 March 2020 | Revised: 4 May 2020 | Accepted: 6 May 2020 | Published: 30 June 2020
Copyright: © 2020 Jeong et al. Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Abstract

A 36-year-old woman with 12-week gestation visited the emergency department, complaining of palpitations. Her electrocardiography (ECG) demonstrated ventricular pre-excitation combined with atrial fibrillation. The polarity of the delta waves in leads V5, V6, I, and aVL were positive and negative in leads V1, III, and aVF, suggesting that the accessory pathway (AP) was located on the right posterior free wall. She did not want to take any medicine to prevent the tachycardia. Moreover, the shortest pre-excited RR interval during the atrial fibrillation was 200 ms, so we decided to ablate the AP without fluoroscopy. An electrophysiology study was performed with guidance of a 3-dimension (3D) navigation system and intracardiac echocardiography (ICE). We ablated the right free wall AP without fluoroscopy. A follow-up ECG no longer exhibited any delta waves. Even in the early period of pregnancy, catheter ablation might be performed safely using ICE and a 3D navigation system without fluoroscopy. Therefore, it could more often be considered as a therapeutic option in pregnant women without concern for radiation exposure.

Keywords
Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome
pregnancy
catheter ablation
fluoroscopy
Figures
Figure 1.
Share
Back to top