Contemporary cardiological practice places great emphasis on the availability of an evidence base to justify and refine indications for treatment. This is particularly apposite to the field of catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF), where almost 2 decades of research at an increasingly frenetic pace has delivered us a potentially curative treatment in carefully selected patients. In dru...

Background Left atrial (LA) wall fibrosis has been demonstrated to play a major role in the pathogenesis and treatment response of atrial fibrillation (AF). The DECAAF study demonstrated that quantification of LA fibrosis by delayed-enhancement MRI (DE-MRI) predicts outcomes after AF catheter ablation. Currently, a number of catheter ablation methods targeting specific regions of the LA are use...

Sixteen patients with type I atrial flutter underwent an attempt at radiofrequency catheter ablation (8 women, 8 men, mean age 53 +/- 11 years). The primary criterion used to identify sites for radiofrequency energy delivery was the identification of a fractionated electrogram. Radiofrequency energy was delivered for 20 to 30 seconds. Radiofrequency catheter ablation was acutely successful in 1...

Ventricular premature contractions (VPC) refractory to medical management may require catheter ablation for symptomatic benefit or for compromised ventricular function in the setting of a high VPC burden [1,2]. While most VPCs are amenable to catheter ablation with conventional radiofrequency or cryothermal ablation from an endocardial approach, 8% of VPCs will have an intramural origin [3].Whe...

Pulmonary vein isolation by point-by-point radiofrequency catheter ablation constitutes the cornerstone of catheter ablation strategies for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. However, despite advances in pulmonary vein isolation ablation strategies, long-term success rates after ablation remain suboptimal, which highlights the need to develop techniques to achieve more durable lesions. Strat...

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Differently from catheter ablation (CA) atrial fibrillation (AF), outcome data on CA re-entrant arrhythmias are scarce. Purpose We sought to evaluate predictors recurrence at follow up in this setting. Methods analysed consecutive patients undergoing mapping and left tachyarrhythmia. Three-dimensional high-density activ...

Accurate and stable positioning of the ablation catheter tip during the delivery of radiofrequency impulses in cardiac electrophysiology remains a challenge due to the endocardium motion from multiple sources (cardiac cycle and respiration) and inevitable slippage of the catheter tip. This paper presents a novel ablation catheter guidance framework during electrophysiology procedures. Catheter ...

Atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common cardiac arrhythmia, is a major risk factor for thromboembolic events, especially ischemic stroke. Catheter ablation is an effective method to maintain sinus rhythm in patients with AF. Although some observational studies have shown a relatively lower stroke rate after catheter ablation, whether catheter ablation can reduce the thromboembolic risk in pat...

Over the past decade, eight randomized studies have compared the efficacy of catheter ablation and antiarrhythmic drug therapy for rhythm control in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Most studies investigated patients with paroxysmal AF after failure of one or more antiarrhythmic drug. All studies showed superiority of catheter ablation over antiarrhythmic drug treatment with respect to r...

Catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF) has gained significant attention during the last decade. Owing to the increase in patients undergoing AF ablation with only moderate long-term outcomes, there is considerable interest in developing new tools to assist the electrophysiologist during the procedure. Catheter contact force (CF) has been known to be an important determinant of radiofreq...