Circumferential Pulmonary Vein Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation. The Milan Experience

摘要

Rapid, irregular, fibrillatory waves that vary in size, shape and timing, electrocardiographically characterize atrial fibrillation (AF). Reported incidence approach 5% in the middle-age and increases markedly with age.1 As the average age of the general population increases, the overall prevalence of AF is also increasing, and represents a major health problem in the rapidly expanding elderly population.1-2 Disrupting symptoms, impaired cognitive function, severely reduced quality of life and relevant health care burden result from AF. Framingham database has provided evidence also of an independent mortality burden, even after adjusting for cardiovascular risk profile, across both sexes and a wide range of ages; even in patients without any cardiac concomitant condition, AF is per se independently associated with a doubling of the risk for death and a quintupling of that for stroke.2