That is a rhetorical question. Below is a tabulation of complication rates between 4 different classifications AF ablation centers. Tertiary referral worldwide centers, a large survey of private and medicare centers, bottom 50% medicare centers and overall medicare centers. Data is from Cappato el al worldwide survey, Desmukh el al US data set and Winkle's analysis of US medicare data. Only major complications are included. The more detailed table is at lone Afib forum site. In percent of patients. The really shocking statistic from Desmukh's survey was that 81% of the ablation procedures were done at centers that do less than 25 AF ablation per year. Heart Rhythm society guidelines indicate that minimum competency requires 100 procedures per year. Be careful out there.
Death 0.15 0.42 0.65 0.4
Tamponade 1.31 2.54 3.15 3.1
Pneumothorax 0.09 0.39 0.55 0.4
Total vascular below 0.54 5.8 5.7 5.7
Valve damage/requiring surgery 0.07 0.28 0.4 0.4
Stroke 0.23 included below 0.4 0.4
Transient ischemic attack 0.71 1.02 0.3 0.2
Total major 4.54 6.28 9.15 9.1