The Effectiveness of Ablation Therapy for Atrial Fibrillation: A Systematic Review

• Published in: Curēus (Palo Alto, CA) Vol. 15; no. 8; p. e43992
• Main Authors: Jaramillo, Arturo P, Jaramillo, Luisa, Briones Andriuoli, Rebeca R, Revilla, Jhoanny C, Castells, Javier, Ibrahimli, Sabina, Villacres, Jossua L, Garzon Mora, Neyla
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Palo Alto Cureus Inc 23-08-2023; Cureus
• Subjects: Ablation; Age groups; Cardiac arrhythmia; Cardiac/Thoracic/Vascular Surgery; Cardiology; Cardiovascular disease; Catheters; Classification; Clinical trials; Drug therapy; Electrocardiography; Etiology; Heart failure; Internal Medicine; Meta-analysis; Observational studies; Pathology; Rehabilitation; Systematic review
• DOI: 10.7759/cureus.43992
• EISSN: 2168-8184

It is expected that the prevalence of atrial fibrillation (AF), the most prevalent cardiac arrhythmia among people aged 65 to 85, would be mostly classified using the CHAS2DS2-VASc approach for anticoagulation therapy. A high number of people in the entire world will be living with AF by 2030. Long-term follow-up data are sparse, although radiofrequency catheter ablation (CA) for symptomatic AF patients has the potential to be a curative therapy. Although women are referred later and less often than men, the outcomes following ablation are comparable across both genders. Health-related quality of life suffers from AF, and patients often find themselves less active as a result of their condition. AF may have a wide variety of symptoms and signs from the clinic's point of view. Women are more likely to exhibit symptoms than men; one reason for this is that women have an average QT interval that is 10-20 milliseconds longer than men, which is more likely to exacerbate tachycardia symptoms.In search of medical databases for relevant medical literature, we looked at PubMed/Medline, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar. Ten publications were gathered after the papers were located, assessed, and qualifying criteria applied were used to select them. The finished articles were done to give an overview of the effectiveness of ablation therapy for AF. Some studies showed that there was no statistical significance between invasive and pharmacological treatments. Other research found no difference in the recurrence of atrial arrhythmia between pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) CA alone and PVI + enhancement magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided fibrosis ablation in individuals with persistent AF. The oldest individuals in studies comparing CA to medical treatment for AF demonstrated no improvement in prognosis after CA. Also, complications from therapy and CA's efficacy in preventing future atrial arrhythmias were similarly low across all age groups. Based on the above, we concluded that more studies are required to establish the most effective approach to treating AF to apply it in daily practice and gain more knowledge about it.