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Isolated Atrial Fibrillation Episodes: Is Ablation a Good Fit?

Heart Rhythm Conditions | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (104)
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@harveywj

I cannot find any peer reviewed articles in the NIH data base that even remotely suggests that ablations are a a problem. All the latest data comes up when searching Afib +Ablation. In fact I found numerous articles that also say Ablations are more effective and more economical than medicine control of Afib. As for my experience my doc did a 2nd ablation (5 1/2 years after the 1st) on me after I began experiencing regular Afib events on average every 4 weeks for almost a year. My burden was at or below 1% for all those events. I always self converted between 18 hours to at most 3 days. His reasoning was I was having multiple Afib events and even though my burden was low I was obviously heading towards more failures and possible higher burdens. The earlier the better to catch it.

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gloaming | @gloaming | 2 days ago

Thank-you. While ablations might seem to fall into the 'dollars earned' darling of cardiac arrhythmia treatment, and yes they are invasive, and yes they bring risk (as any invasive procedure will), the data is firming and it shows that an ablation will free more people from arrhythmia more completely and for longer periods of time than do just the drugs. What I have not seen stated explicitly is that, if an ablation is 'successful' (meaning free from arrhythmia for one full year), the patient needn't take drugs during that time. Further, the heart can't get used to, or find pathways and re-entrants around those drugs, if it ain't being exposed to them! What this means is, if a future ablation isn't in the cards for a given patient for some reason, and they develop recurring AF, at least he/she can be pointed to potentially efficacious drugs once again and start that battle all over again.

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