Introduction
Left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) with a Watchman device (WD)
(Boston Scientific, St. Paul, MN) is an alternative strategy to oral
anticoagulation for embolic stroke risk reduction in patients with
non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF).
There are rare case reports of WD- associated infection [1-3]. While
the original Watchman trials reported on adverse outcomes broadly, they
did not directly report on the incidence of WD-related infections or
outcomes in the setting of blood-stream infections (BSI) [4-6].
We sought to evaluate the incidence, risk factors, and outcomes for
WD-associated infections from a single-center cohort over a 14 year
period.