title: Interventional treatment of atrial fibrillation - contemporary methods and perspectives.
abstract: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is estimated to affect nearly 3 million people around the world. It is the most common arrhythmia and its incidence increases with age. Catheter ablation is an interventional procedure performed to reduce the patient's AF burden when pharmacotherapy did not succeed in relieving the patient's symptoms. The ablation is most effective in paroxysmal AF; however, many techniques are being developed to make this procedure more eligible for patients with persistent arrhythmia. The most common AF ablation technique involves separating electric activity of the pulmonary veins from the left atrium. Over recent years, many novel and promising techniques were developed (e.g., balloon cryoablation, circular catheter ablation, laser ablation, robotic navigation, etc.), which may further improve AF ablation efficacy.
authors: Department of Cardiology-Intensive Therapy, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland.
authors: Bartosz
authors: B
authors: Zuchowski
authors: Krzysztof
authors: K
authors: Kaczmarek
authors: Lukasz
authors: L
authors: Szumowski
authors: Yi-Gang
authors: YG
authors: Li
authors: Pawel
authors: P
authors: Ptaszynski
mesh_terms: D001281:Atrial Fibrillation / Q000601:surgery*; D017115:Catheter Ablation / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003452:Cryosurgery / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D053685:Laser Therapy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D025321:Surgery, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: arrhythmia; atrial fibrillation; catheter ablation; cryoablation; interventional treatment; laser ablation; radiofrequency ablation