Ablation for the treatment of arrhythmias

Surgical ablation of supraventricular cardiac arrhythmias has been rendered obsolete by the various modalities of electromagnetic transcatheter ablation techniques. Any ablation technique, including surgery is essentially the controlled destruction of a substrate which is acting as a source or a critical circuit limb of an arrhythmia. The most successful and popular modality is radio frequency (RF) ablation although other modalities such as dc shock, laser, microwave, and ultrasound are also being investigated. This review discusses the role of electrical ablation, especially RF ablation, as a treatment for supraventricular tachyarrhythmia and reviews the engineering principles and biological responses to ablation. A brief synopsis of the results of electrical catheter ablation procedures is presented. RF catheter ablation is a successful technique in clinical arrhythmia management, with reported success rates of greater than 95% in many series. The indications for clinical RF catheter ablation continue to broaden