Persistent Atrial Fibrillation Cryoballoon Ablation

Treatment of Long Persistent Atrial Fibrillation by Single Cryoballoon Ablation of the Pulmonary Veins, Left Atrial Roof Line and Ablation of Left Lateral Ridge From Within the Appendage

Patients with persistent irregular heartbeats also called persistent atrial fibrillation usually have a lower probability of curing their arrhythmia with ablation with heat called radiofrequency then those with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, as previous studies have shown.

The emerging ablation with freeze(cryoablation) has not been studied for persistent atrial fibrillation but has been proven to be efficient in the paroxysmal type.

We hypothesized that persistent atrial fibrillation will have a freedom of recurrence rate of 70% after use of cryoablation at one year of follow up.

This was a retrospective single center cohort study designed to assess the freedom from recurrence of atrial fibrillation in the sample of patients with long persistent atrial fibrillation.

All patients who underwent cryoballoon ablation for atrial fibrillation at Staten Island University Hospital in the period ranging from January 2010 to 2013 were included in the study.

Data was collected from the electronic medical record as well as from the physician's office records after Institutional Review Board approval of the protocol

.Data collected included demographics, comorbidities pertaining to diabetes, heart failure, coronary artery disease, stroke occurrence, medications including antiarrhythmics and anticoagulants, procedural details including time of procedure and of fluoroscopy, vein ostial size, number of veins isolated, time to first recurrence after blanking period, complications of procedure and mortality. All patient identifiers were kept in a password protected computer.

Inclusion Criteria:

• All patients included in the registry and who have symptomatic persistent atrial fibrillation presenting to the institution who favor ablation as first line therapy instead of antiarrhythmics
• All patients with symptomatic persistent atrial fibrillation who have failed antiarrhythmic therapy.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients refusing follow up by event monitor.
• Pregnant women.