Long-term outcomes after pace and ablate treatment for permanent atrial fibrillation
Reviews past records of adults treated with pace and ablate for atrial fibrillation.
Key facts
- Who runs it
- Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern
- Where
- Basel, Bern, and Geneva, SwitzerlandSee the 3 sitesAlso in 2 other countries, 2 sites
- Trial code
- Registry title
- Patient Selection and Long-Term Outcomes of Pace & Ablate Strategy in Atrial Fibrillation
- Status
- Recruiting
- People taking part
- 2,600 people, planned
- Started
- 5 Jan 2011
- Expected to end
- 31 Dec 2027
- Type of study
- Observational
- Record updated
- 1 October 2026
Who can take part
AI summary
From the trial's eligibility criteria. Machine-read from the registry text on this page, so it can be wrong. The registry text below and the trial team decide who can take part.
The study includes adults with atrial fibrillation who had atrioventricular node ablation with a permanent pacemaker-type device, and who have baseline heart ultrasound data.
- Age
- 18 years or older at the time of the ablation
- Sex
- All sexes
- Disease stage
- Atrial fibrillation treated with atrioventricular node ablation (pace-and-ablate strategy); no lower limit of baseline ejection fraction
- Earlier treatment
- A permanent cardiac implantable electronic device already in place, or implanted as part of the pace-and-ablate strategy
- Biomarker or test result
- Baseline echocardiographic data, including left ventricular ejection fraction, must be available
Main reasons for not taking part
- Documented refusal of the further use of health-related data
The registry criteria, word for word
Show all 4 criteriaShow less
Who can take part
- Age 18 years or older at the time of atrioventricular node ablation
- Atrial fibrillation, undergoing atrioventricular node ablation with a permanent cardiac implantable electronic device already in situ or implanted as part of the pace-and-ablate strategy
- Availability of baseline echocardiographic data, including left ventricular ejection fraction
Who cannot take part
- Documented refusal of the further use of health-related data; Note: cardiac resynchronisation therapy or conduction system pacing at baseline is not an eligibility exclusion. Such patients are included in the cohort and in the procedural and health-economic analyses, but are excluded from the validation of the pacing-induced cardiomyopathy risk model, in which a decline in left ventricular function would represent non-response to resynchronisation. No lower limit of baseline ejection fraction is applied
Where in Switzerland
Also in 2 other countries, 2 sites
- University Hospital BaselBasel, SwitzerlandContact: Christian Sticherling, MD (principal investigator)Taking people
- Inselspital Universitätsspital BernBern, SwitzerlandContact: Nikola A Kozhuharov, PD Dr. med.Taking people
- Geneva University HospitalsGeneva, SwitzerlandContact: Haran Burri, MD (principal investigator)Taking people
About the trial
What the trial wants to find out
Atrioventricular node ablation with permanent pacing (the "pace-and-ablate" strategy) controls ventricular rate in atrial fibrillation that has not responded to drug therapy or catheter ablation. Chronic right ventricular pacing, however, can cause pacing-induced cardiomyopathy (PICM), and it is not well established which patients are at risk and should therefore receive conduction system pacing or biventricular pacing instead.
Read full original descriptionShow less
REPACE is a multicentre retrospective cohort of consecutive patients who underwent atrioventricular node ablation from January 2011 onwards at five centres in Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Poland: Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, Inselspital Bern, University Hospital Basel, Geneva University Hospitals and the Silesian Centre for Heart Diseases, Zabrze. More than 2,000 patients ablated up to March 2024 have been included to date; patients ablated after that date at the participating centres are being added.
The study has three aims: to validate, in an independent multicentre population, a previously published risk model for pacing-induced cardiomyopathy; to describe the procedural technique and outcomes of atrioventricular node ablation across different health systems; and to estimate the health-economic impact of the pace-and-ablate strategy.
Pacing-induced cardiomyopathy is defined as an absolute reduction in left ventricular ejection fraction of at least 10 percentage points to a value below 50%. All potential endpoints are adjudicated by a clinical events committee blinded to the classification made at the site.
The group in the trial
- Pace-and-ablate cohort
Consecutive adults with atrial fibrillation who underwent atrioventricular node ablation with a permanent cardiac implantable electronic device at the five participating centres from January 2011 onwards. Within this cohort, the patients who had neither cardiac resynchronisation therapy nor conduction system pacing at baseline form the population for the validation of the pacing-induced cardiomyopathy risk model.
Questions to ask the study team
- How often do I need to come in, and for how long each time?
- Are travel costs paid?
- Can I keep my own doctor?
- What happens if I want to stop?
Contact the study team: see the registry record → Contacts and Locations
Print a page for my doctorData and sources
- Registry record
- Listed on ClinicalTrials.gov.
- Official title
- Patient Selection and Long-Term Outcomes in Patients With a Pace & Ablate Strategy for Interventional Rate Control in Symptomatic Permanent Atrial Fibrillation - A Retrospective Multicenter Analysis
- Plain-language title
- Long-term outcomes after pace and ablate treatment for permanent atrial fibrillationGenerated from the registry record. The registry title is the official one.
- AI summary
- From the trial's eligibility criteria. Read by machine on 13 November 2026.
- Record updated
- 1 October 2026