Surgical ablation during CABG increased survival in atrial fibrillation patients: Study
A recent study published in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery suggests that despite strong clinical guidelines, the use of surgical ablation during coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) remains low and potentially life-shortening.
The study reviewed data from over 87,000 Medicare beneficiaries who had preexisting atrial fibrillation and underwent CABG between 2008 and 2019. This revealed that only 22.2% received concomitant surgical ablation. This technique targets the abnormal electrical signals causing AF and was associated with significantly improved long-term survival.
This study found that patients who received surgical ablation during CABG lived a median of 4.4 months longer than those who did not. Also, risk-adjusted median survival was 7.82 years in the ablation group when compared to 7.46 years in the non-ablation group (P < .001).
The survival benefit was even more pronounced when looked at the surgeon practice patterns. The patients operated on by surgeons who frequently perform ablation (defined as doing so in ≥40% of their CABG cases) had a median survival advantage of nearly 5 months (4.96 months) when compared to the patients treated by infrequent ablation surgeons (<5% of cases). Median survival in this analysis was 7.03 years versus 6.62 years, respectively (P < .001).
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