Incidence and Outcomes of Pericardial Effusion/Tamponade Following Percutaneous Left Atrial Appendage Closure

Percutaneous left atrial appendage closure (LAAC) with Watchman (Boston Scientific, Marlborough, MA) has emerged as an alternative to anticoagulation for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). A US nationwide registry reported that even though the rate of major in-hospital complication of LAAC was low at 2.18%, pericardial effusion or pericardial tamponade (PE/PT) is a relatively common complication. 1 Freeman JV Varosy P Price MJ Slotwiner D Kusumoto FM Rammohan C Kavinsky CJ Turi ZG Akar J Koutras C Curtis JP Masoudi FA The NCDR left atrial appendage occlusion registry. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020; 75: 1503-1518 Crossref PubMed Scopus (85) Google Scholar In addition, case reports demonstrated the occurrence of delayed PE/PT after discharge. 2 Sepahpour A Ng MK Storey P McGuire MA Death from pulmonary artery erosion complicating implantation of percutaneous left atrial appendage occlusion device. Heart Rhythm. 2013; 10: 1810-1811 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (31) Google Scholar ,3 Lu C Zeng J Meng Q Zeng Z Pulmonary artery perforation caused by a left atrial appendage closure device. Catheter Cardiovasc Interv. 2020; 96: E744-E746 Crossref Scopus (5) Google Scholar However, scarce data are available on the incidence (in-hospital and postdischarge) and outcomes of PE/PT following LAAC. Therefore, we aimed to investigate them using a large population-based database.