Catheter Ablation vs. Medical Treatment in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation has become the most commonly seen cardiac arrhythmia in clinical practice affecting almost 5.6 million Americans with that number expected to rise in the near future. The current literature review is aimed to assess the efficacy of catheter ablation in the treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation when compared to standard medical therapy. A PubMed search for studies of "Atrial Fibrillation" found 83,251 articles. Following the application of inclusion/exclusion criteria, we identified 44 articles of relevance that compared catheter ablation and medical therapy in the treatment of atrial fibrillation. These 44 articles included 20 Observational studies, eight randomized clinical trials, three clinical trials, five cohort studies, and eight review articles. Our review determined that catheter ablation was associated with a much lower rate of reoccurrence of atrial fibrillation when compared to medical therapy, as well as decreased cardiovascular outpatient visits and thromboembolic complications. The effect of quality on life when compared to medical treatment, however, was found to be inconclusive.