Telemetry-Documented, Pace-Terminable Ventricular Tachycardia in Patients With Ventricular Fibrillation

to the small number of ventricular tachycardia patients. No patients in group I had any complications in the 48 hours after the procedure, thereby proving the safety of this procedure on an outpatient basis. The concern of delayed AV block or recurrence of tachycardia and any other complications in the few hours or days following the procedure has not been substantiated. Two previous studies of radiofrequency ablation as an outpatient procedure have included patients who did not complete observation by 7:00 P.M. and were admitted for an overnight stay in the outpatient group.5,6 In our study, all outpatient groups were discharged on the same day of the procedure and the remaining patients, including those who stayed overnight, were not considered to be outpatient procedures. The limitation of our study is its retrospective nature and the bias of selecting only patients living within city limits for discharge on the same day. However, the baseline demographics of the patients in the 2 groups remain well matched. We have not estimated the actual cost saved, but it would be fair to assume that there was a reduction in cost of at least 1 day hospital stay. In conclusion, we feel that it is safe and feasible to discharge patients on the same day within a few hours after undergoing a radiofrequency catheter ablation procedure. There were no differences in outcome between the outpatient and overnight stay groups. The implications of the present study is cost reduction of the radiofrequency ablation procedure.