Abstract 13366: Effectiveness and Safety of Short-Term Outpatient Amiodarone Followed by Catheter Ablation in Management of Atrial Fibrillation

Introduction: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrythmia with significant health system burden and emergency room/hospital admissions. We conducted this study to understand the efficacy of managing AF with first line short term outpatient amiodarone followed by catheter ablation (pulmonary vein isolation). Amiodarone was continued for 6 months post catheter ablation (CA). We looked at a primary end point of recurrence of AF and the drug side effects during the year post CA. Hypothesis: If this strategy of short-term amiodarone with early ablation of AF is effective, then we could incorporate this in an AF management care plan. Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we used TriNetX database to collect data on patients with amiodarone initiation with CA and those who were given Dofetilide or Sotalol, followed by CA. We collected data between March 1, 2020, and June 1, 2021. We created a propensity score matching of a 1:1 to match on the covariates: Age, Male, Female, CAD, Heart Failure, Diabetes, COPD, BMI. The endpoint is occurrence of AF within 365 days of medication initiation. Results: A total of 40,640 patients were included in the analysis. Of those patients, Cohort 1 comprised amiodarone initiation with catheter ablation (n=176) compared to Dofetilide or Sotalol which had (n=40,474). After the propensity match, we included 176 individual patients in each cohort. The amiodarone group had more men (79.5% vs 58.8, P<0.001) and were with higher comorbidities of CAD, Heart Failure, Diabetes, COPD. At 365 days Amiodarone group had a reduction of 12.6%, P<0.001 of AF compared to Dofetilide or Sotalol patients. There has been no reported side effects requiring discontinuation of Amiodarone. Conclusions: We are excited to report a statistically significant 12.6% reduction in AF recurrence in Cohort 1 with short term outpatient Amiodarone initiation with CA compared to inpatient Dofetilide or Sotalol initiation with CA. There have been no safety issues with Amiodarone use for 6-12 months post PVI. This strategy avoids occupying beds for initiation of class III antiarrhythmic (Dofetilide or Sotalol), thus significantly reducing the burden on the health system.