Over the past 5 years, the electrophysiology community has been focused on the development of catheter ablation techniques and ablation systems to cure atrial fibrillation. This endeavour has been fuelled by a number of factors including: (1) the clinical importance of atrial fibrillation because of its high prevalence in the general population, associated symptoms, stroke risk, and increased m...

References The list of references is available in the online version of this paper. Figure 2 Examples of designing and testing left atrial ablation lines in a 3D computer model (Lausanne heart model) of the human atrium: (A) Pulmonary vein isolation (posterior view). (B) Persistent atrial fibrillation ablation in the anterior view; complete Maze procedure, right. Movies of the model to be found...

Different lesion sets and ablation techniques have been performed. We compared these outcomes in search of the best method. We performed a retrospective analysis of patients who have undergone AF surgery different from the maze III. The surgical lesion sets were pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) alone, left atrial maze (LAM) and bi-atrial maze (BAM) and were made with different ablation techniques...

BACKGROUND Although the MAZE procedure allows for the recovery of sinus rhythm and left atrial (LA) mechanical function in the great majority of patients with chronic atrial fibrillation (AF), the effects of MAZE on the precise LA geometry and wall motion remain to be elucidated. We hypothesized that LA size and mechanical function in patients with chronic AF and mitral valvular disease are wel...

Atrial fibrillation may result in significant symptoms, (systemic) thrombo-embolism, as well as tachycardia-induced cardiomyopathy with cardiac failure, and consequently be associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Nowadays symptomatic atrial fibrillation can be treated with catheter-based ablation, surgical ablation or hybrid approaches. In this setting a fairly large number of surg...

Background: Atrial Fibrillation is known to account for one third of all the strokes caused in the US in the population above the age of 70. Patients treated with the surgical Cox MAZE operation have been shown to have a 150 fold decrease in the incidence of stroke over an 18 year period. However, the original Cox MAZE although extremely successful in treating atrial fibrillation and decreasing...

OBJECTIVE The surgical Maze III procedure remains the gold standard in treating atrial fibrillation (AF); however due to clinical difficulties and higher risks, less invasive ablation alternatives are clinically investigated. The present study aims to define more efficient ablation patterns of the modified maze procedure using a biophysical model of human atria with chronic AF. METHODS A thre...

BACKGROUND The Ex-Maze III procedure is a recently developed surgical method for ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF). The procedure uses epicardial approach and can be performed on the beating heart. AIM To evaluate the efficacy and safety of Ex-Maze III ablation in patients undergoing mitral valve (MV) surgery. METHODS The study group consisted of 20 consecutive patients (8 males, mean ag...

The influence of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) on triggering and perpetuation of atrial fibrillation (AF) is well established. Ganglionated plexi (GP) ablation achieves autonomic denervation by affecting both the parasympathetic and sympathetic components of the ANS. An anatomic approach for GP ablation at relevant atrial sites appears to be safe, and improves the results of PV isolation i...