Initial Experience of Sequential Surgical Epicardial-Catheter Endocardial Ablation for Persistent and Long-Standing Persistent Atrial Fibrillation With Long-Term Follow-Up

摘要

BackgroundPatients with long-standing persistent (LSP) atrial fibrillation (AF) who have previously undergone catheter ablation represent a challenging patient population. Repeat catheter ablation in these patients is arduous and associated with a high failure rate, whereas surgical ablation can be complicated by multiple flutters. We sought to determine if minimally-invasive surgical ablation, followed by catheter ablation of all inducible flutters, would improve success rates over repeat catheter ablation alone.