EP Edge Newsletter Part III: Pulsed Field Ablation Complications — Hemolysis, Coronary Spasm, Silent Stroke, Phrenic Nerve Injury, and CIED Interaction

Pulsed field ablation (PFA) has rapidly transformed atrial fibrillation ablation, offering a non-thermal mechanism of myocardial injury through irreversible electroporation. While early clinical trials emphasized its favorable safety profile compared with radiofrequency and cryoablation, expanding real-world experience has revealed a distinct complication spectrum driven by high-voltage electric field interactions with myocardium, coronary arteries, blood, nerves, and cardiac implantable electronic devices. Unlike thermal injury, these complications are mediated by electrical, autonomic, and vascular effects, including delayed coronary vasospasm, malignant ventricular arrhythmias, and transient electrical instability. Understanding these mechanisms is critical as pulsed field ablation becomes more widely adopted in electrophysiology practice.This episode explores key complications including intravascular hemolysis and associated acute kidney injury, coronary artery spasm and ischemia, silent cerebral ischemic lesions, phrenic nerve injury, esophageal temperature elevation, and neuromuscular stimulation such as laryngospasm. These risks are strongly influenced by catheter design, lesion burden, waveform characteristics, and proximity to vulnerable structures. We also examine the interaction between pulsed field ablation and pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), including transient pacing inhibition, electromagnetic interference, and rare cases of permanent device malfunction. As pulsed field ablation expands into more complex lesion sets and broader patient populations, recognizing these platform-specific risks is essential for procedural planning, patient selection, and post-procedural monitoring.Full references, detailed analysis, graphs, and visual summaries are available on the EP Edge Newsletter on LinkedIn, and the complete long-form article is also available on Substack at epedge.substack.com. If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, please contact epedgecast@gmail.com.