13th International Congress
THE "NEW FRONTIERS"
OF ARRHYTHMIAS 1998

January 24-31, 1998
Marilleva, Trento, Italy

RT-93

Options for surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation in patients with mitral valve disease

Gaetano Minzioni, Marco Aiello, Laura Ressia, Francesco Pagani, Mario Vigano.
Divisione e Cattedra di Cardiochirurgia, Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy

Introduction

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common form of arrhythmia and is commonly associated with structural heart disease, but sometimes it is an autonomous disease, the so called "lone" AF. In any case AF has detrimental effects due to loss of atrial activity transport function and to an inadequate ventricular rate response to exercise. Thromboembolic risk is also increased in these patients.

Treatment of the underlying cardiac disease may restore sinus rhythm (SR), especially in patients with recent onset of AF, but long-term results are disappointing, with AF recurrence in most cases due to the altered electrophysiological properties of left atrium (LA), not modified by the valve operation^1,2.