In a recent study, it has been revealed that surgical ablation is lot better than catheter ablation to fix left atrial dilatation and hypertension. It was found by a team led by Lucas Boersma, MD, PhD, cardiologist at St. Antonius Hospital, Nieuwegein, Netherlands. It’s being believed that these results are significant enough to be used to understand of patients are required to be educate about optimal invasive therapy.

It was told that patients suffering from antiarrhythmic drug-refractory AF with left atrial dilatation and hypertension or failed prior catheter ablation were being roped in for the Atrial Fibrillation Catheter Ablation Versus Surgical Ablation Treatment (FAST) trial. The team managed to find that adverse event rate was found to be 3.2% for catheter ablation, 23% for surgical ablation, and 13.1% and 11.5% during chronic follow-up.

It has been told that there are nearly 2.2 million Americans who are affected by atrial fibrillation, in which the upper chamber of the heart beats irregularly and then, it affects flow of blood to other parts of the body.

However, the team from the Stanford University School of Medicine is looking for suitable participants who could ensure cure for a heart condition known as atrial fibrillation. It has been told that Stanford is among those six sites nationwide involved in the trial. The treatment involves minimally invasive radiofrequency energy to target cells from the outside of the heart with catheter ablation using the same energy from inside the heart.

It has also been told that no single therapy alone either surgical or catheter ablation could help in curing the disease with full efficiency. “What we want to examine is whether combining the surgical and catheter components gives better results”, said Paul Wang, MD, a cardiologist and professor of cardiovascular medicine, who is spearheading the Stanford portion of the study.