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©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Surgical perspectives in the management of atrial fibrillation
Katerina Kyprianou, Department of General Surgery, North Bristol NHS trust, Southmead Hospital, Bristol BS10 5NB, United Kingdom
Agamemnon Pericleous, Antonio Stavrou, School of Medicine, Heath Park Campus, Cardiff CF14 4XW, United Kingdom
Inetzi A Dimitrakaki, Department of Cardiology, Metropolitan Hospital of Athens, 18547 Faliro, Greece
Dimitrios Challoumas, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, Gloucester GL1 3NN, United Kingdom
Georgios Dimitrakakis, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff CF14 4XW, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Kyprianou K and Dimitrakakis G designed research; Kyprianou K performed research; Kyprianou K wrote the paper; Dimitrakakis G edited the paper; Pericleous A performed the final review and editing; Pericleous A, Stavrou A, Dimitrakaki IA and Challoumas D contributed to part of the initial draft of the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest associated with any of the authors that have contributed to this publication.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Georgios Dimitrakakis, MD, MSc, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University Hospital of Wales, Heath Park Campus, Cardiff CF14 4XW, United Kingdom. gdimitrakakis@yahoo.com
Telephone: +44-29-20745160
Received: May 27, 2015
Peer-review started: May 29, 2015
First decision: July 10, 2015
Revised: August 8, 2015
Accepted: November 17, 2015
Article in press: November 25, 2015
Published online: January 26, 2016
Peer-review started: May 29, 2015
First decision: July 10, 2015
Revised: August 8, 2015
Accepted: November 17, 2015
Article in press: November 25, 2015
Published online: January 26, 2016
Core Tip
Core tip: The surgical management of atrial fibrillation (AF) is a rapidly developing field. Existing surgical techniques are constantly evolving in order to achieve more minimally invasive procedures. Additionally, the relatively new ablative modalities are being increasingly used, either alone or in conjunction with surgical techniques; attempting overall better and less invasive results. This review looks at the current surgical techniques and ablative modalities available for managing AF, where each section is re-enforced with the current most up to date guidelines on the use of each of these modalities.