European journal of cardio-thoracic surgery : official journal of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery
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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg · Oct 1997
Intraoperative radiofrequency microbipolar coagulation to replace incisions of maze III procedure for correcting atrial fibrillation in patients with rheumatic valvular disease.
Radiofrequency catheter ablation of atrial tachycardias and flutter is an established technique. The same modality in the microbipolar mode is effective in producing full thickness coagulation injury. Cox's maze procedure is highly successful in curing atrial fibrillation (AF) surgically. However, it consumes relatively long cross clamp time and cardiopulmonary bypass time. In this study, radiofrequency microbipolar coagulation was used as an adjunct to corrective valve surgery, as an intraoperative ablative modality to replace Cox's maze III incisions, thus remarkably shortening the procedure. The results of this procedure are compared historically with those of 26 patients who underwent corrective valve surgery alone. ⋯ Thus, our modification considerably shortened the time taken for creating the maze in comparison to the Cox's maze procedure and was effective in restoring normal sinus rhythm in 80% of the patients.