ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Each year, the questions remain the same: by improving catheter ablation devices and the mapping and information systems that guide them to the right targets, will we close the AF treatment efficacy gap? Or are other strategies needed, and which types of patients should get which therapies and when? Here, in part 1 of the conference wrap-up, we’ll discuss the importance of treating AF early and MaxWell Biomedical, the developer of a novel modality of treatment.
The Atrial Fibrillation Symposium is among the most lively of medical device meetings, in terms of the camaraderie and controversy exhibited in panel sessions. The 2023 meeting, held in Boston in early February, was no exception, with equally sound arguments made on both the pro and con sides of many issues. This level of controversy reflects the complexity of the AF patient population and the relatively early stage of the evolution of cardiac catheter ablation, a mainstay of AF treatment, even though it was first introduced by the electrophysiologist Michel Haïsseguerre 25 years ago. Today cardiac catheter ablation is a $4 billion industry that, according to a recent article in the Journal of Clinical Medicine (by McCarthy, Cox, and Kislitsina et al) only addresses 9% of the 30% of patients who could benefit from catheter ablation among a world population of 33 million people with AF.
The debates that linger around which AF patients, when, where and how to treat them with catheter ablation rage on because efficacy rates following pharmaceutical and device treatments, while constantly improving as therapies advance, still aren’t what they need to be, not for the least severe or the worst forms of the disease. The AF population is heterogeneous, breaking down into three major classifications, as well as combinations of those AF subtypes with comorbidities like heart failure and coronary disease, and it’s not yet clear how to treat all varieties of patients.
