Does the addition of atrial fibrillation ablation to mitral-valve surgery improve freedom from atrial fibrillation at 1 year in patients with persistent or long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation?
Adding surgical atrial fibrillation ablation during mitral valve surgery improves 1-year freedom from AF but increases the need for permanent pacemakers.
The addition of atrial fibrillation ablation to mitral-valve surgery significantly increased the rate of freedom from atrial fibrillation at 1 year among patients with persistent or long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation, but the risk of implantation of a permanent pacemaker was also increased. (Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00903370.).
Gillinov et al. (Mon,) studied this question.