WHAT WE DO

Surgical Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation Atrial fibrillation is the most common rhythm disturbance of the heart. It is responsible for up to 40 percent of the strokes in people over the age of 70 years. Because the atrium does not contract in a cohesive manner, there is stagnation of blood inside the heart. This can lead to formation of blood clots inside the heart. These clots can embolize to the brain (to cause stroke), lower extremities (gangrene of the legs), or bowels (gangrene of the bowels). Medical treatment of this arrhythmia is successful in only a third of patients. Usually patients are prescribed drugs to slow the rate of the heart and the anticoagulant, Coumadin, to prevent the formation of blood clots inside the heart. Of course, anticoagulants can themselves cause complications by excessive bleeding. Surgery is associated with a greater than 90 percent success rate. In this operation, called Maze, multiple cuts are made in the heart to prevent the flow of abnormal pulses or arrhythmias to the ventricles. A much less traumatic minimally invasive modification of this procedure enables the surgeon to use alternative energy sources, such as high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), and cryoenergy, to create the same effect. At Hackensack University Medical Center, FDA-approved minimally invasive surgical ablation is being offered for the treatment of atrial fibrillation using a two-inch incision. For people with or without mitral valve diseases and atrial fibrillation, this surgery can provide a sustained relief from atrial fibrillation without the associated trauma of a sternotomy.