Atrial fibrillation remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in industrialized societies. The mortality rate for patients with atrial fibrillation is twice that of patients normal sinus rhythm.

Atrial fibrillation is characterized by abnormalities in electrical impulse formation or conduction within the heart; these abnormalities disrupt the heart’s coordinated mechanical contraction and can result in reduced or insufficient cardiac output or other complications.

As a reasonable alternative to restoring sinus rhythm via long-term pharmacologic therapy, catheter ablation is being performed with greater frequency. Watch our video to find out about a new non thermal ablation modality and how we are going to compare it`s potential benefits to a current ablation technology in the BEAT-AF trial.

Ablation treatment paradigms have evolved over time, and current strategies emphasize isolation of the pulmonary veins (PVI) as the cornerstone of catheter ablation of AF. Energy sources for endocardial lesion creation have included radiofrequency, cryo (freezing), laser, ultrasound and microwave.New ablation techniques and devices continue to develop with the objective of improving safety and efficacy, while reducing procedure time (complexity).

Understanding the need for creating electrical isolation of the pulmonary veins, treatment paradigms have focused on creating circumferential lesions or wide circumferential lesion sets that block electrical continuity between the pulmonary veins and the left atrium.

Ablation technologies that rely upon indirect assessment of lesion formation are challenged to deliver improved durability and therefore long-term efficacy of therapy
We hypothesise that Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) energy, a non-thermal ablative modality highly specific for cardiac cells, will deliver durable and safe pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) and linear lesions in persistent atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation.