Heart-type fatty acid binding protein is an early marker of myocardial damage after radiofrequency catheter ablation

ObjectivesRadiofrequency (RF) ablation of arrhythmias induces myocardial damage and release of biomarkers. This study aimed to assess the kinetics of heart-type fatty acid-binding protein (h-FABP), a cytosolic protein released after myocardial injury incurred by both atrial and ventricular RF ablation, compared to other markers of myocardial injury.Design and methodsh-FABP, cTnI, CK-MBmass and myoglobin were evaluated in 30 patients with atrial or ventricular tachyarrhythmias before, immediately after and at 3, 6 and 24 h after the procedure.Resultsh-FABP increased immediately after the procedure in all subjects (6.6 ± 1.2 μg/L vs 2.7 ± 0.3, p < 0.001) but increased significantly only in ventricular ablations. The peak of h-FABP significantly correlates with the values of time for mean power of RF application in both the entire patient cohort and in ventricular ablations.Conclusionsh-FABP may be an early parameter for monitoring RF-induced lesions and the site of ablation was relevant for biomarker increase.