Why the study?
Conventional catheter ablation is less effective for persistent atrial fibrillation, prompting the need to review convergent ablation rationale, evidence, and service implementation.
Convergent ablation is an emerging hybrid treatment for persistent atrial fibrillation, requiring multidisciplinary collaboration between cardiothoracic surgery and electrophysiology.
Convergent ablation may merit multidisciplinary discussion in persistent AF; leaves open the need for randomized trials to guide adoption.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia worldwide and remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Unfortunately, a significant proportion of patients have persistent AF, for which conventional catheter ablation is less effective. However, convergent ablation has emerged in recent years as a hybrid treatment targeting both the epicardium and endocardium in a multidisciplinary joint cardiothoracic and electrophysiology procedure, with promising efficacy outcomes in recent studies. This treatment is increasingly being performed in the United Kingdom. This review article discusses the rationale and evidence behind convergent ablation, along with factors that need to be considered when setting up a successful ablation service.
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Mannakkara et al. (2024) studied this question.
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