Catheter ablation for paroxysmal and persistent atrial fibrillation
Abstract
Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia seen in cardiovascular departments. Treatments include medical interventions and catheter ablation. Due to uncertainties in medical therapies for AF, and the need to continue sinus rhythm, ablation has been recently considered as a viable alternative. Many new ablation methods based on pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) have been developed.
Objectives: The primary objective of this review was to assess the beneficial and harmful effects of catheter ablation (CA) in comparison with medical treatment in patients with paroxysmal and persistent AF. The secondary objective was to determine the best regimen of CA.
Search methods: Searches were run on The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) on The Cochrane Library Issue 3 2009, MEDLINE (1950 to August 2009), EMBASE (1980 to August 2009), the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (1978 to August 2009) and the CKNI Chinese Paper Database (1994 to 2009) . Several journals published in Chinese were also handsearched.
Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in people with paroxysmal and persistent AF treated by any type of CA method. Two reviewers independently selected the trials for inclusion.
Data collection and analysis: Assessments of risk of bias were performed by two reviewers, and relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used for dichotomous variables. Meta-analysis were performed where appropriate.
Main…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a meta-analysis, done in people. Its evidence level is 1 of 5 (Highest · pooled evidence). Pooled evidence from several studies sits at the top of the evidence pyramid. Reported size: 3,560 participants or records.
Read the paper
Related studies
- Chaos and quantum thermalization
- The Dalton quantum chemistry program system
- Cord Blood Leptin and Adiponectin as Predictors of Adiposity in Children at 3 Years of Age: A Prospective Cohort Study
- Quantitative metabolomics by H-NMR and LC-MS/MS confirms altered metabolic pathways in diabetes
- Stable adiabatic quantum batteries
- A novel self-lipid antigen targets human T cells against CD1c(+) leukemias
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.