Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2025 Apr 12;14(8):2648.
doi: 10.3390/jcm14082648.

Atrial Fibrillation Ablation: Impact on Burden and Cardiovascular Outcomes

Ahmed AlTurki  1   2 , Vidal Essebag  1   3
Affiliations
Review

Atrial Fibrillation Ablation: Impact on Burden and Cardiovascular Outcomes

Ahmed AlTurki et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

Atrial fibrillation [AF] is the most common sustained arrhythmia observed in clinical practice with considerable cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. AF burden provides a quantitative measurement of AF and is now more readily achievable utilizing wearable and implantable cardiac monitoring devices. This review summarizes the current literature on AF burden and cardiovascular outcomes and outlines the effect and role of catheter ablation in ameliorating AF burden.

Keywords: atrial fibrillation; burden; catheter ablation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

V.E. has received honoraria from Abbott, Biosense Medical, Boston Scientific and Medtronic. V.E. is the recipient of a Clinical Research Scholar Award from the Fonds de recherche du Québec-Santé (FRQS).

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Atrial fibrillation progression and cardiovascular outcomes. Adapted from de Vos et al. 2010 [30], Ogawa et al. 2018 [31], Vitolo et al. 2023 [32], and Wong et al. 2018 [33]. AF = atrial fibrillation; SCAF = subclinical atrial fibrillation. (A) Progression versus no progression of paroxysmal AF; (B) progression of subclinical AF.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Effect of ablation on atrial fibrillation burden and cardiovascular outcomes. Adapted from AlTurki et al. [19], O’Neil et al. [36], Kuck et al. [38], Pokushalov et al. [40] and Bunch et al. [46]. AF = atrial fibrillation; HF = heart failure; MACE = major adverse cardiovascular events.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Chugh S.S., Havmoeller R., Narayanan K., Singh D., Rienstra M., Benjamin E.J., Gillum R.F., Kim Y.H., McAnulty J.H., Jr., Zheng Z.J., et al. Worldwide epidemiology of atrial fibrillation: A Global Burden of Disease 2010 Study. Circulation. 2014;129:837–847. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.113.005119. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Roth G.A., Mensah G.A., Johnson C.O., Addolorato G., Ammirati E., Baddour L.M., Barengo N.C., Beaton A.Z., Benjamin E.J., Benziger C.P., et al. Global Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases and Risk Factors, 1990–2019: Update from the GBD 2019 Study. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 2020;76:2982–3021. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2020.11.010. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Schnabel R.B., Yin X., Gona P., Larson M.G., Beiser A.S., McManus D.D., Newton-Cheh C., Lubitz S.A., Magnani J.W., Ellinor P.T., et al. 50 year trends in atrial fibrillation prevalence, incidence, risk factors, and mortality in the Framingham Heart Study: A cohort study. Lancet. 2015;386:154–162. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61774-8. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Linz D., Gawalko M., Betz K., Hendriks J.M., Lip G.Y.H., Vinter N., Guo Y., Johnsen S. Atrial fibrillation: Epidemiology, screening and digital health. Lancet Reg. Health—Eur. 2024;37:100786. doi: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2023.100786. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wolf P.A., Abbott R.D., Kannel W.B. Atrial fibrillation as an independent risk factor for stroke: The Framingham Study. Stroke. 1991;22:983–988. doi: 10.1161/01.STR.22.8.983. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources