Patient characteristics
Thirty-nine patients (23 males, 59%) had a repeated accessory pathway ablation. Of them, 17 (43%) patients had their prior ablation in another center. The recurrence rate after acutely successful ablations for patients that had both procedures at the participating institutions was 3.5%.
The mean age at first ablation was 11.9±3.3 years, and the mean weight was 42.6±14.7kg. Thirty-one (79%) patients had structural normal hearts as assessed by transthoracic echocardiogram, 4 (10%) had Ebstein’s anomaly of the tricuspid valve, and 1 (3%) had congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries. The remaining 3 patients (8%) had minor structural defects (1 small atrial septal defect, 1 unroofed coronary sinus and 1 persistent left superior vena cava draining to the coronary sinus).