Radiofrequency Ablation of Supraventricular Tachycardias in Infants and Children: When Is It Really Indicated?

Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia in children and adolescents, approximately 85% being due to reentrant circuits (1). Pharmacologic treatment has been proposed as the first-line therapy for frequent, sustained episodes of SVT associated with significant symptoms. However, patients refractory to medical therapy often require surgical intervention (2), which has recently been replaced by the procedure of transcatheter ablation (3).