Does left atrial appendage resection reduce cerebral ischemic events and improve treatment effectiveness in patients with persistent atrial fibrillation?
Left atrial appendage resection during thoracoscopic ablation appears to be safe and effective in reducing cerebral ischemic events and improving atrial fibrillation treatment outcomes.
Highlights Left atrial appendage resection is a safe and effective method of excluding the appendage from the systemic circulation, it reduces the number of cerebral ischemic events and increases the effectiveness of atrial fibrillation treatment. Abstract According to a number of studies, left atrial appendage can be the source of atrial fibrillation. Moreover, in atrial tachyarrhythmias, the appendage is the main source of thrombosis that causes cerebral ischemic events. In an attempt to solve these two issues, specialists developed various devices to exclude the left atrial appendage from the systemic circulation and attempted to ablate the arrhythmogenic area. The aim of this review is to analyze current literature data on the abovementioned issues and our own experience of left atrial appendage resection during thoracoscopic pulmonary vein ablation in patients with persistent atrial fibrillation.
Filippenko et al. (Sat,) studied this question.