Atrial fibrillation is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Surgical treatment is the most effective means of curing atrial fibrillation. The classic Cox maze procedure eliminates atrial fibrillation in more than 90% of patients and has remained the gold standard in surgery for atrial fibrillation. Despite being highly effectiv...

Objective: Patients with mitral valve disease and suffering of atrial ®brillation of more than 1 year's duration have a low probability of remaining in sinus rhythm after valve surgery alone. Intraoperative radiofrequency ablation was used as an alternative to simplify the surgical maze procedure. Methods: Seventy-two patients with mitral valve disease, aged 63 ^ 11 years ranging from 31 to 80 ...

Surgical therapy for patients with atrial fibrillation has undergone significant advances over the past 30 years. The Cox Maze III technique is currently the gold standard of care for these patients. However, Maze IV, a less complex procedure using alternative energy sources, is rapidly replacing the Cox Maze III in clinical practice. The use of alternative energy sources such as cryothermy and...

Atrial fibrillation is one of the most common cardiac arrhythmias, classically presenting with an “irregularly irregular” rhythm or without chest pain, palpitations, shortness breath, lightheadedness, fatigue. The maze procedure open-heart operation that creates a carefully designed incisions and ablations in atrial myocardium. Although it procedure, serious complications may happen. Herein, we...

OBJECTIVES The Cox maze III procedure achieved high cure rates and became the surgical gold standard for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. Because of its invasiveness, a more simplified ablation-assisted procedure, the Cox maze IV procedure, has been performed at our institution since January 2002. The study examined multiple preoperative and perioperative variables to determine predictors ...

Maze surgery is widely used to treat atrial fibrillation but requires cardiopulmonary bypass and longer aortic cross-clamping time. Percutaneous transcatheter pulmonary vein isolation or catheter-based maze procedure are time consuming and relies on fluoroscopy and contrast media, and pulmonary vein obstruction and cardiac tamponade are still major problems. Although thoracoscopic minimally inv...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the influence of two different ablation devices (microwave AFx and radiofrequency Medtronic), designed to create linear lesion lines, with respect to efficacy and restoration of sinus rhythm (SR). METHODS Between February 2001 and December 2002, 42 patients with chronic, persistent atrial fibrillation (AF) >6 months were submitted to different combinations of valve surge...

A 60-year-old man with a dual-chamber implantable cardioverter defibrillator and severe dyspnea on exertion due to apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy underwent a septal myectomy and radiofrequency maze procedure. Following the procedure a persistent delay in atrial sensing was observed and was most likely a result of iatrogenic conduction delay from right atrial ablation lines. These observatio...