Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Jun 26, 2020; 12(6): 269-284
Published online Jun 26, 2020. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v12.i6.269
Intra-procedural arrhythmia during cardiac catheterization: A systematic review of literature
Fatima A Shaik, David J Slotwiner, Gregory M Gustafson, Xuming Dai
Fatima A Shaik, David J Slotwiner, Gregory M Gustafson, Xuming Dai, Division of Cardiology, New York Presbyterian Queens Hospital, Flushing, NY 11355, United States
Author contributions: Shaik FA participated in the development of the proposal to research on the topic, performed literature search and review, and wrote the draft of the manuscript, reviewed, edited and approved the manuscript; Slotwiner DJ participated in the supervision of the research on the topic, reviewed and edited the manuscript. Gustafson GM participated in the research on the topic, reviewed, edited and approved the manuscript; Dai X initiated and supervised the research on this topic, originated the manuscript concept, participated in literature search and review, wrote and revised the manuscript as a senior author.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no potential conflicts of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared, revised and presented according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xuming Dai, MD, PhD, FACC, FSCAI, Associate Professor, Division of Cardiology, New York Presbyterian Queens Hospital, 56-45 Main Street, Flushing, NY 11355, United States. xud9002@nyp.org
Received: February 26, 2020
Peer-review started: February 26, 2020
First decision: April 25, 2020
Revised: May 3, 2020
Accepted: May 26, 2020
Article in press: May 26, 2020
Published online: June 26, 2020
Core Tip

Core tip: Cardiac catheterization is the most performed invasive procedure in the current healthcare system. Cardiac arrhythmias are common complications during the procedure. This review demonstrated a 0.14%-0.3% incidence of transient right bundle branch block during right heart catheterization in normal individuals, and a significantly higher risk of complete heart block (up to 6.3%) for individuals with pre-existing left bundle brunch block. Potentially life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias requiring either withdrawal of catheter or cardioversion could occur at the rates of 1%-1.3%. The incidence of significant arrhythmias during left heart catheterization has reduced by about 10 folds in the past half century, from 1.1% to 0.1%. Coronary interventions, as well as intracoronary imaging and measuring fractional flow reserve, carry increased risk of malignant arrhythmias, including up to 1% incidence of ventricular fibrillations. Constant telemetry monitoring is essential during cardiac catheterization.