Surgical isolation of the left atrial appendage: A new technique

Abstract

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a dismal arrhythmia. Thirty to forty percent of patients with mitral valve diseases have chronic AF at the time of surgery with increased incidence of morbidity and mortality postoperatively. Thromboembolism is well known among patients with AF despite adequate anticoagulation therapy and the left atrial appendage (LAA) has been proposed to be its main source. In 2014 LAA has been considered for surgical closure in the AF treatment guidelines. Several surgical techniques have been adopted to exclude LAA during surgery and none of them proved to be completely effective. The main goal of our described new technique is to completely separate the LAA from general circulation avoiding failures of other techniques.