HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Personal Folders Download to citation manager Author home page(s): Ganesh Shanmugam Permission Requests Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Shanmugam, G. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Shanmugam, G. Related Collections Coronary disease Electrophysiology - arrhythmias

J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2005;130:233-234
© 2005 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery

Letters to the Editor

Atrial fibrillation: Isolation or ablation?

Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, United Kingdom

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

To the Editor:

The article "Map-Guided Surgery for Atrial Fibrillation" by Nitta and associates ¹ confirms and raises important issues. An adequately performed pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) cures most patients with intermittent atrial fibrillation (AF) but fails as an isolation procedure in patients with non–pulmonary vein (non-PV) foci and in those with continuous AF, in whom the PVs and the circuits they harbor become irrelevant to the maintenance of AF. In these patients the goal shifts from isolating the trigger to ablating the macroreentrant circuits. Although a left atrial (LA) procedure is mandatory, the real question is the following: When do . . . [Full Text of this Article]