- Atrial fibrillation affects about 30 million people worldwide.
- Researchers report that people who have had cardiac ablation for the condition are less likely to develop dementia than those who did not have it.
- They also noted that there was a significantly reduced all-cause death rate for people who had cardiac ablation.
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For their study, the researchers searched TriNetX, a global federated health research network, for people who were older than 65 and received a diagnosis of A-fib at least five years before September 28, 2022.
The scientist created two groups, one with participants who had cardiac ablation and another from people who did not have catheter ablation.
The researchers balanced each group for age, gender, ethnicity, co-morbidities, and cardiovascular medications. Both groups had about 20,700 participants.
After comparing the two groups, the scientists reported that the group who did not receive ablation had 439 cases of dementia. The group that received the procedure had 253 cases.
They also found that there was a significantly reduced all-cause death rate between the two groups. The ablation group had 2,447 deaths compared to 3,509 deaths in the non-ablation group.
“These are interesting and exciting conclusions — that ablation can reduce mortality and dementia,” said Dr. Stephen Tang, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in California who was not involved in the study.”
“Certainly, it would be exciting for our field. Aside from a few special populations, such as heart failure patients, prospective clinical trials using rhythm control have not been…
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