A 46-year-old woman with a 7-year history of profoundly symptomatic daily paroxysmal atrial fibrillation had undergone two percutaneous catheter ablations and multiple medication trials. With informed consent, bilateral pulmonary vein isolation and left atrial appendage occlusion as well as ablation of ganglionated plexi were performed by a totally thoracoscopic technique employing a bipolar ra...

consecutive procedures of pulmonary vein isolation were performed for treatment of paroxysmal and persistent atrial fibrillation. These interventions constitute the initial experience of the Instituto Cardiovascular de Buenos Aires, where 260 procedures are currently performed each year. Our population consisted mainly of men with an average age of 55.58 years; 71.9% had no history of cardiovas...

Focal point-by-point radiofrequency catheter ablation has shown considerable success in the treatment of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. However, it is not without limitations. Recent clinical and preclinical studies have demonstrated that cryothermal ablation using a balloon catheter (Artic Front©, Medtronic CryoCath LP) provides an effective alternative strategy to treating atrial fibrillatio...

We apply methods from non-linear statistical time series analysis to characterize electrograms of atrial fibrillation. These are based on concepts originating from the theory of non-linear dynamical systems and use the empirical reconstruction density in reconstructed phase space. Application of these methods is not restricted to deterministic chaos but is valid in a general time series context...

Ablation of atrial fibrillation is an established treatment for the management of patients with paroxysmal and persistent atrial fibrillation. The complex pathophysiology of persistent atrial fibrillation has fuelled the concept of adjunctive substrate modification on top of pulmonary vein isolation. However, recent studies have failed to demonstrate additive benefit from complex ablation appro...

The autonomic nervous system plays an important role in the genesis of various cardiac rhythm disorders. Experimental studies have indicated that in atrial fibrillation particularly vagal activity may have a decisive influence on the electrophysiologic properties of atrial myocardium. In patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, a carefully taken history and electrocardiographic findings ob...

Objectives This is a protocol for Cochrane Review (intervention). The objectives are as follows: To determine the efficacy and safety of any catheter ablation in people with first diagnosed, paroxysmal, persistent, long‐standing persistent atrial fibrillation versus medical therapy.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES The natural history of idiopathic atrial fibrillation is not well understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of and risk factors for disease recurrence. METHODS The study involved 115 patients with a first episode of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation of unknown origin who were included the FAP registry, which contains data from 11 district hosp...