Ablation of chronic atrial fibrillation by radiofrequency maze procedure during valve replacement

    YU Shiª²Qiang, CAI Zhenª²Jie, ZHOU Gengª²Xu, DU Riª²Ying, WAN Mingª²Ming, WANG Hongª²Bing

    Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi¡¯an 710033, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To report 8ª²year experiences of surgical treatment of chronic atrial fibrillation by radiofrequency maze procedure. METHODS: Maze procedure was performed in 236 patients by radiofrequency ablation instead of classic ¡°cut and sew¡± procedure. Of the 236 patients, 166 patients were treated with modified maze procedure, in which lines were modified, including adding 3ª²line ablation in the lower right atria, adding 2ª²line ablation in left atria in patients, with atrial fibrillation >3 years, left atria dimension >70 mm and amplitude f wave <0.2 mV. RESULTS: The radiofrequency maze procedure only took 13-39 (mean 21) min for aorticª²clamping and there was no death or complications related to ablation. 210 patients converted to normal sinus rhythm (89%) two weeks after operation. Of the 70 patients treated with unmodified procedure, 51 converted to sinus rhythm (73%), while of the 166 patients treated with modified procedure, 159 converted to sinus rhythm (95.7%, P<0.01). Sixtyª²three (90%) patients out of the 70 patients had atrial flutter, while only 58 (35%) out of the 166 patients had atrial flutter (P<0.01). CONCLUTION: Radiofrequency maze procedure is much simpler than the classic cut and sew maze procedure and its aorticª²clamping time averages only 21 minutes. Radiofrequency maze procedure with modified lines has a higher conversion rate to sinus rhythm compared with the classic maze procedure. ......