Atrial Fibrillation Ablation During Cardiac Surgery Linked to Improved Long-Term Survival

This study was conducted among patients with presurgical atrial fibrillation who had undergone conventional sternotomy heart surgery, deriving from the Heart Surgery in Atrial Fibrillation and Supraventricular Tachycardia (HEIST) registry in Europe from 2010-2021. Investigators of the study sought to build on prior knowledge of preoperative atrial fibrillation procedures, where it is recognized the procedure increases risk for negative patient results following cardiac surgery. Namely, the study assessed long-term measures of mortality following surgical ablation that takes place prior to cardiac surgery procedures. Throughout the study, it was found that the use of concomitant surgical ablation was associated with a significant decrease in mortality: 16 percent compared with patients who had no ablation performed on them.