Surgery for atrial fibrillation: Current state-of-the-art

Excerpt

Surgery for atrial fibrillation has been performed for two decades. In 1987, James Cox first introduced the Cox–Maze procedure. Since this time, there has been startling progress in the field of interventional therapy for atrial fibrillation. Over the last 5 years, there has been enormous renewed interest in the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. In large part, this has been a result of the introduction of new ablation technology, which has greatly simplified the operative approach and allowed surgeons to develop less invasive surgical techniques and more widely applicable procedures. Because of this progress, the number of surgical procedures performed for atrial fibrillation annually in the United States has skyrocketed. This special issue of the Journal of Interventional Cardiac Electrophysiology is meant to provide a summary of the current state-of-the-art of surgical therapy for atrial fibrillation. Although it is admittedly incomplete because of space limitations, it will provide the reader with a reasonable overview of the field. …