Clinical outcomes differ among different ablation technologies used for surgical atrial fibrillation therapy

Multiple ablation technologies are used to provide atrial fibrillation therapy during cardiac surgery. A rigorous search was performed to identify all peer-reviewed papers that provided clinical outcome data following ablation therapy. A META analysis showed significant differences in clinical outcome by ablation technology: clinicians, using temperature-controlled RF power delivery, achieved higher rates of normal sinus rhythm at follow-up, and patients ablated with microwave ablation had lower rates of normal sinus rhythm than the average of all ablation-treated patients. Permanent pacemaker implantation rates were higher than average for patients treated with microwave or argon-based cryoablation technologies, but were lower than the average for patients treated using temperature-controlled RF.