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Indwelling urinary catheters have been thought necessary for patients undergoing ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF) under general anesthesia. The rationale included preventing bladder stretch injury and monitoring urine output. But bladder catheters can also pose risks. Researchers recently conducted a single-center, randomized, controlled study to assess indwelling bladder catheters in 160 patients undergoing AF ablation (NCT03635034).
The study arms were placement of indwelling bladder catheters or no catheter; exclusion criteria included history of widely defined genitourinary problems and expected procedure duration of >6 hours. Mean surgical duration was 3 hours. By 30-day follow-up, the composite outcome (cystitis, dysuria, hematuri…