July 16, 14 — A new physician poster presentation at the Atrial Fibrillation Symposium 19th Annual International Meeting in Orlando, Fla., reports long-term outcomes for the convergent procedure, a multidisciplinary epicardial-endocardial approach to treat patients with persistent atrial fibrillation (AF). AF is the most common cardiac arrhythmia, recently estimated to affect 33.5 million people worldwide, with a majority of patients falling into the difficult-to-treat persistent AF population.
In this presentation from the University Medical Center Ljubljana in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 76 patients with persistent and longstanding persistent AF were evaluated through continuous loop recorders. At 36 months' follow-up, 84% of patients were in sinus rhythm and only 10% of patients required repeat ablations.
"We continue to see the positive clinical impact of the Convergent Procedure in our persistent AF patients with this three-year data," said Professor Borut Gersak, M.D., Ph.D., of University Medical Center Ljubljana in Ljubljana, Slovenia. "The Convergent Procedure should be a first-line treatment for persistent AF patients. Our long-term results are aligned with other recent publications in the U.S., and we see high single-procedure efficacy compared to endocardial catheter ablation."
The multidisciplinary Convergent Procedure is performed as a single procedure in the electrophysiology lab. The epicardial lesions are created first under direct endoscopic visualization by a surgeon, through a 2 cm incision in the abdomen, with no chest incisions or ports. The endocardial lesions created by an electrophysiologist help confirm lesion set completeness through specialized EP diagnostics, which also predict outcomes.
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October 30, 2024 
