Catheter Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation | Lessons Learned From CABANA

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common heart rhythm disturbance, with an estimated 33.5 million people affected worldwide. By age 75 years, more than 10% of the population will have developed AF. It is well recognized that AF increases the risk of thromboembolic stroke; however, AF also increases the risk of other highly morbid conditions such as heart failure (HF). As a result, even in the modern era of anticoagulation, mortality rates among patients with AF remain up to 2-fold higher than mortality rates among individuals without AF. For many patients, AF also has a major detrimental effect on quality of life, similar to that observed in patients with coronary artery disease requiring percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) or after a myocardial infarction. Symptoms from AF, which include, but are not limited to, palpitations, dyspnea, and exercise intolerance, are the primary reason that patients seek medical treatment, and physicians treat AF-related symptoms with a therapeutic armamentarium that includes rate control agents, antiarrhythmic drugs, and catheter ablation. Therefore, clinicians hope to achieve 2 potential goals with current therapies directed at AF: to improve quality of life and to decrease AF-related morbidity and mortality…

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