Background: It has been suggested that remote magnetic navigation (RMN) may provide enhanced catheter stability and substrate contact to aid in ablation. To date, no study has examined this claim. Accordingly, we compared the characteristics of the successful ablation of atrioventricular reentry tachycardia (AVNRT) using RMN with a matched population ablated using a conventional (CON) manual approach. Methods: Sixteen patients who underwent RMN-assisted ablation of typical AVNRT were matched with 16 patients who had a CON-AVNRT ablation. Results: All patients had successful slow pathway modification without complication. The mean catheter temperature achieved with the successful ablation was significantly lower with RMN than with CON (42 +/- 7 degrees C vs 47 +/- 3 degrees C, P <= 0.05). Time to junctional tachycardia (JT) was significantly earlier (5.7 +/- 4.1 s vs 11.2 +/- 8.9 s, P <= 0.05) and variation in catheter temperature with the successful ablation (0.89 +/- 0.45 vs 1.45 +/- 0.49, P < 0.01) was significantly reduced in the RMN group than in the CON group. There was no significant difference between RMN and CON in terms of the total number of lesions and the mean power achieved during the successful lesion. Conclusions: Although the construction of the ablation catheters is similar, ablations with RMN catheters resulted in a lower mean temperature, earlier time to JT, and less variability of temperature during ablation, suggesting greater catheter stability. This study indicates that ablation with RMN can achieve success with lower catheter temperatures.
