CTS Trials Network: Surgical ablation of atrial fibrillation during mitral valve surgery - many questions unanswered

A disease that is associated with stroke and mortality, atrial fibrillation (AF) complicates 30 to 50% of mitral valve disease patients admitted for surgery.(1) Since the introduction of the Cox maze III procedure in 1992 many efforts have been made to come up with modified lesion sets and/or energy sources to surgically treat AF. This lead to the recently published American Heart Association (AHA)- American College of Cardiology (ACC)-Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) guidelines(2) stating that it is reasonable to perform atrial fibrillation ablation in selected patients undergoing other types of cardiac surgery. The effectiveness of different techniques in conversion to sinus rhythm and the clinical impact of freedom from AF remain a question. The CTS Trials Network have undertaken a trial to answer these questions. The first year results of their randomized trial comparing AF ablation at the time of mitral valve surgery with mitral valve surgery alone were published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine.(3).