Results
For devices classified as cardiac ablation percutaneous catheters, we
found that there was a statistically significant drop in reported
malfunctions from 2019-20 to 2020-21. On average, there were
~1.6 fewer weekly reports of malfunctions attributed to
cardiac ablation percutaneous catheters during the pandemic compared to
the pre-pandemic year, a drop of 19% (P-value = 0.04) (Figure
1). We additionally examined the number of weekly reports of injuries
attributed to cardiac ablation percutaneous catheters in the pandemic
year versus the pre-pandemic year, and found no significant difference
(P-value ≈ 0.42). We then examined adverse event data for cardiac
ablation percutaneous catheters for atrial fibrillation. We found that
there were, on average, ~1.8 fewer weekly reports of
malfunctions attributed to cardiac ablation percutaneous catheters for
atrial fibrillation during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic
year, a drop of 23% (P-value < 0.02) (Figure 2). We
further examined the number of weekly reports of injuries attributed to
cardiac ablation percutaneous catheters for atrial fibrillation in the
pandemic year versus the pre-pandemic year, and found no significant
difference (P-value ≈ 0.61) (Figure 3) . Finally, we analyzed
adverse event data for cardiac ablation percutaneous catheters for
atrial flutter. We found that there were, on average,
~1.1 fewer weekly reports of injuries attributed to
cardiac ablation percutaneous catheters for atrial flutter in the
pandemic year compared to the pre-pandemic year, a drop of 25% (P-value
< 0.02). We analyzed the number of weekly reports of
malfunctions attributed to cardiac ablation percutaneous catheters for
atrial flutter in the pandemic year versus the pre-pandemic year, and
found no significant difference (P-value ≈ 0.10).