Abstract More than 20 years since its initial use, catheter ablation has become a routinely performed procedure for the treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Initially based on the electrical isolation of pulmonary veins in patients with paroxysmal AF, subsequent advances in the understanding of pathophysiology led to additional techniques not only to achieve better results, but also to treat patients with persistent forms of arrhythmia, as well as patients with structural heart disease and heart failure.

Introduction Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) aiming at the electrical isolation of the pulmonary vein (PV) is more effective in controlling the rhythm than drugs, especially in young individuals with symptomatic paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF) without structural heart disease.– Electrical isolation is performed with point-by-point RFA around the PV, constituting a complex and lengthy procedure., Recently, technologies have been developed aiming to simplify PV isolation, among them the balloon cryoablation., In this approach, the cryoballoon is inflated in the PV ostium in […]