Therapy of atrial arrhythmias by temperature-controlled radiofrequency ablation

Summary form only received: Atrial fibrillation is the most prevalent arrhythmia in the world occurring in 0.4% of the general population and 2 to 5% of the patients over the age of 60. Although generally not considered dangerous arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation can cause significant morbidity due to its associated symptoms of palpitations and its thrombo-embolic complications, including stroke. For that reason, a variety of strategies have been pursued to suppress or eliminate atrial fibrillation. It has been demonstrated surgically that long linear regions of block (in these cases created with surgeon´s scalpel) can prevent the “critical mass” of atrium required for re-entrant rhythms to occur. It has been the goal of this investigator to try and emulate the surgical maze operation by creating long linear lesions in the atria