You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Case report
Left atrio-oesophageal fistula after atrial fibrillation ablation
  1. Vishesh Paul1,
  2. Rajamurugan Meenakshisundaram2,
  3. Abdur R Jamal3 and
  4. Talha Bin Farooq2
  1. 1Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana, Illinois, USA
  2. 2Internal Medicine, Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana, Illinois, USA
  3. 3Vascular Surgery, Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana, Illinois, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Vishesh Paul; visheshpaul{at}gmail.com

Abstract

We report a case of a 68-year-old woman who presented with atypical chest pain and fluctuating neurological symptoms 4 weeks after cryoballoon ablation procedure for atrial fibrillation. Brain imaging showed multiple embolic infarcts, while the chest imaging revealed an abnormal connection between the posterior wall of the left atrium and the oesophagus. Based on her clinical presentation and the imaging findings, a diagnosis of left atrio-oesophageal fistula (AOF) was established. AOF carries a high mortality rate unless an urgent surgical repair is performed. Oesophageal instrumentation for an echocardiogram or endoscopy should be avoided as it can result in massive air embolus, causing stroke or death.

  • pacing and electrophysiology
  • stroke
  • adult intensive care

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2019-232508

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @visheshpaul83

    • Contributors VP took care of the patient, wrote part of the manuscript and provided the final edited version. RM, ARJ, TBF did the literature search and wrote parts of the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer-reviewed.