Can Atrial Fibrillation Be Cured?
While medication and electrical cardioversion can treat and in many cases even manage atrial fibrillation, they won't cure your afib.
The surgical and catheter ablation procedures below can cure your afib, though with varying degrees of success. If treating your afib isn't working and you need a cure, how do you choose what's best for you? To see more detailed information about each of these procedures, including what to expect and the risks and success rates of each, follow the links below.
- Catheter ablation is done by an electrophysiologist (a cardiologist specializing in heart rhythms) in the electrophysiology (EP) lab rather than in an operating room as with the surgeries below. Success to date in curing afib has been very low, but has been improving at centers with large numbers of procedures accomplished. Some patients require two or three catheter ablations for a successful result. With catheter ablation there is less control by the EP because catheters are threaded through the blood vessels and thus there is no direct visibility of what is happening. That has resulted in a high level of complications to date, so catheter ablation risks are a significant factor in undertaking this procedure.
- Maze (Cox-Maze III) surgery is the gold standard for curing atrial fibrillation. It is a cut-and-sew procedure that takes place in open-heart surgery. Success results are high, generally 96% or greater ten years after surgery, but it is a very complicated procedure with a more difficult recovery.
- Maze surgical ablation, sometimes called Cox-Maze IV, is an open-heart surgery that uses the same open-chest procedure as Cox-Maze III, but uses an energy source to scar the tissue instead of using incisions, thus accomplishing the same thing in much less time. It is generally done in patients needing a valve replacement or coronary artery bypass (CABG) surgery, but may also be done on "lone atrial fibrillation." Maze surgical ablation has the same level of efficacy as Cox-Maze III, but also the same recovery time.
- Mini-Maze surgical ablation is a new minimally-invasive variation of Maze surgical ablation. Since it doesn't require opening the chest, it is typically done on patients with "lone afib", often after a failed catheter ablation. It is much easier on the body and involves much less recovery time than open-chest surgeries, and success rates appear similar. Some patients we've spoken with skipped catheter ablation altogether and went straight to Mini-Maze to cure their afib.
Mellanie True Hills, our founder, had Mini-Maze surgery and shares her own experience with it here at StopAfib.org. We hope that those of you who have had other procedures will take the time to Contact Us to share your experiences as well to benefit others.
The goal for this "patient-to-patient" site is to give you, the afib patient, information to make informed decisions regarding your life and health.
