Ablation of Longstanding Persistent Atrial Fibrillation.

The article discusses the effect of various ablation interventions on the result in patients with longstanding persistent atrial fibrillation (AF). It cites ablation techniques including pulmonary vein isolation (PVI), linear ablation in addition to PVI, and the stepwise ablation approach. It states that the use of single interventions during each procedure is often unsuccessful. A chart depicting the calculated values for the single ablation procedure and multiple ablation techniques is presented. Furthermore, developing new quantitative methods for substrate characterization is helpful in improving the mechanistic understanding of the relationship between anatomic and electrophysiologic remodeling in the left atrium, and the development of longstanding persistent atrial fibrillation.