Cryoablation of atrial fibrillation Atrial fibrillation (AF) - is the most common arrhythmia, which affects more than 2 million people in SSHA.1, 2 The prevalence of AF continues to grow, so that by 2050 the United States the number of people affected by the arrhythmia can udvoitsya.3 OP - it is a disease of aging. However, no increased incidence of AF only due to age population, but also due to increased incidence of cardiovascular risk factors and consequently cardiovascular zabolevaniy.4, 5 Many epidemiological studies have shown that the incidence of AF increases throughout the Terrestrial sharu.6 -8 Despite the widespread prevalence of AF, many large randomized trials (such as AFFIRM, RACE and AF-CHF) were not able to show the benefits of the pharmacological control ritma.9-11 All of these studies have shown that the control of heart rate may be a good alternative, and even has advantages over control of the rhythm. When choosing a treatment strategy must be carefully weighed the lack of proven benefit of rhythm control and reduced quality of life associated with symptomatic AF.
In population studies have shown an increased risk of death (1.5-2 times) in patients with AF compared with paired patients without AF. 12,13 The study compared rhythm management strategies and heart rate indicate that the failure to improve survival when using rate control strategy may be due to: 1) failure to restore and maintain the rhythm and / or 2) the possible side effects of existing antiarrhythmic drugs. Yet it remains unknown whether the successful restoration of sinus rhythm for a long period to improve survival. Single-center, non-randomized study in Milan (Italy) showed improved survival for catheter ablation of AF (compared with a group of medical treatment), but it is not clear from the group of patients or ablation and drug therapy had the same source risk.14 More recently, John Day and colleagues reported an improvement in long-term (3-year) survival in patients with AF who underwent catheter ablatsiya.15 In this retrospective study of 4212 patients with catheter ablation had a lower mortality rate than 33696 patients in the control group, paired by age and sex, without AF (AF 23.5%, 8.7% without AF, ablation of 6,0%; p0, 001).
In addition, after catheter ablation less common stroke or dementsiya.16 Although this study has its limitations (potentially confounding factors and selection bias), it has put forward an important hypothesis that catheter ablation may decrease the risk of stroke and improve the survival of patients with atrial fibrillation. Currently, this is an important hypothesis is tested in a large prospective randomized study CABANA.17
Methodist Hospital Offering CryoAblation
Cardiologist Matthew Latacha, M.D., made a little history on Tuesday, May 24, when he performed Methodist Hospital's first cardiac CryoAblation procedure on a female patient suffering from atrial fibrillation.
