Viable Prediction for Atrial Fibrillation Recurrence After Catheter Ablation

Abstract

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common heart rhythm abnormality and a leading cause of stroke affecting nearly 3 million people in the United States. More than 750,000 hospitalizations and 130,000 deaths occur each year because of AF. Incremental costs of AF are about $26 billion each year (Kim et al., 2011). A normal heartbeat begins as a single electrical impulse that comes from the atria (Figure 1). The impulse sends out an electrical pulse that causes the atria to contract and move blood into the lower ventricles. The electrical current then passes through the AV node, causing the ventricles to contract and relax in a steady, rhythmic sequence (Laske et al., 2009). When AF occurs, the electrical impulse does not follow this order. Instead of one impulse moving through the heart, many impulses begin in the atria and fight to get through. These extra impulses cause the atria to fibrillate, quiver or twitch, in a fast and disorganized way. The chaotic atrial activity can cause several problems including stroke (Hunter, 2014). Restoring regular sinus rhythm improves symptoms and prevents stroke. Although new developments aimed at treating AF are being explored actively (Camm et al., 2010), current treatment options for AF mainly are medications or radiofrequency catheter ablation. Medications are not very effective and can cause serious side effects (Verma & Natale, 2005); therefore the American College of Cardiology and the Heart Rhythm Society recommended ablation as the preferred treatment for AF (January et al., 2014). Ablation burns or freezes the abnormal tissue through radiofrequency energy and has a greater chance of reducing or eliminating AF (Camm et al., 2010).