Impact of age on the management and prognosis of esophageal fistula after atrial fibrillation ablation—a subanalysis of the worldwide POTTER-AF study

Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine 2026 Open access

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Authors: Sorin S. Popescu, Zeynep Gizem Demirtakan, Vanessa Schmidt, Helmut Pürerfellner, Philipp Sommer, Christian Sohns, Christian Veltmann, Daniel Steven, Kyoung-Ryul Julian Chun, Philippe Maury, Estelle Gandjbakhch, Mikaël Laredo
+71 more Stephan Willems, Thomas Beiert, Leon Iden, Anna Füting, Raphael Spittler, Sergio Richter, Anja Schade, M. Kuniss, Carsten Wunderlich, Dong-In Shin, Dirk Große Meininghaus, Marc Bonsels, David Reek, Uwe Wiegand, Alexander Bauer, Andreas Metzner, Lars Eckardt, Olaf Krahnefeld, Christian Sticherling, Michael Kühne, Dinh Quang Nguyen, Laurent Roten, Dominik Linz, Pepijn van der Voort, Bart A. Mulder, Johan M. Vijgen, Alexandre Almorad, Charles Guénancia, Laurent Fauchier, Serge Bovéda, Yves De Greef, A. Da Costa, Pierre Jaı̈s, Antoine Milhem, Laurence Jesel, Rodrigue Garcia, Hervé Poty, Ziad Khoueiry, Julien Seitz, Julien Laborderie, Alexis Mechulan, François Brigadeau, Alexandre Zhao, Yannick Saludas, Olivier Piot, Nikhil Ahluwalia, Claire A Martin, Jian Chen, Bor Antolič, Georgios Leventopoulos, Emin Evren Özcan, Hikmet Yorgun, Serkan Çay, Kıvanç Yalın, Maichel Sobhy Naguib Botros, Ewa Jędrzejczyk‐Patej, Osamu Inaba, Ken Okumura, Koichiro Ejima, Houman Khakpour, John Nicholas Catanzaro, Vivek Yerrapu Reddy, Andrea Natale, H Blessberger, Bing Yang, Julia Vogler, Karl‐Heinz Kück, J. Llorente Merino, A Keelani, Christian-H. Heeger, Roland Richard Tilz
DOI: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1708499
Cited by: 0
References: 33

Abstract

Background Esophageal fistula (EF) is a rare but devastating complication following atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation. Data regarding the impact of age on EF are scarce. Objective To study the impact of age on the management and prognosis of EF following catheter ablation for AF. Methods The POTTER-AF study is a worldwide registry on EF following catheter ablation for AF. A total of 553,729 patients underwent AF ablation in 214 centers between 1996 and 2022. Of them, 138 patients experienced EF, and data regarding age, management, and prognosis were available in 113 patients. The population was divided based on the median age. Results The median age was 63 years; 54 patients were

Fields of Study & Subjects

Atrial Fibrillation Management and Outcomes Esophageal and GI Pathology Cardiac Arrhythmias and Treatments

Publication details

Journal / source
Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine
Volume
12
Pages
1708499–1708499
Publication date
11 February 2026
Language
EN