Background: Surgical ablation (SA) is commonly used in atrial fibrillation (AF) patients undergoing cardiac surgery. However, its effect has been established in few randomized studies. To assess the complete atrial fibrillation free (AF-free) survival in randomized study assessing the effects of additional concomitant SA of AF in patients primarily indicated for other cardiac surgery.
Methods: The PRAGUE-12 study was a prospective randomized study comparing the effect of adding SA to other cardiac surgery. We examined the data from the PRAGUE-12 trial and grouped patients according to complete AF-free survival. All patients had regular check-ups at 3, 6, 9 months, some of them with Holter recordings, and a final check-up at 12 months with Holter recording.
Results: One hundred ninety-four patients were analyzed; 104 originally randomized to surgery with adding SA (SA group) and 90 without it (non-SA group). Complete AF-free status was found in 46 patients from the SA group (44.2%) and 25 patients (27.8%) from the non-SA group (p<0.05). In a multivariate logistic regression, the SA group was associated with a greater chance for complete AF-free survival (OR 1.87, p<0.05). In the multivariate analysis of the SA group, history of myocardial infarction (OR 0.2, p<0.05) and a higher EuroSCORE (OR 0.9, p 0.05) were independently associated with a lower probability of AF-free survival.
Conclusion: Complete AF-free survival following SA was present in almost one half of patients. Patients with a history of myocardial infarction and higher EuroSCOREs were less likely to benefit from an add-on SA procedure.
Keywords: Atrial fibrillation; MAZE; Surgical ablation.
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