Catheter Ablation or Keyhole Surgery.

[Mikee]

Hello all, this is my first posting so I hope I'm doing things correctly. I've had persistant, long standing A/F for about 2 years now, been hospitalised once. Today I had my first appointment with the E.P. and to cut things short, I was offered the option of either a Catheter Ablation or Key Hole Surgery to treat my A/F., the choice being mine. I wonder if any member on this site has had the Key Hole Surgery option and could offer any advice. I'm struggling with the choice at the moment.

Thanks, Mikee.

[BobD Volunteer]

Mikey I have had three catheter ablations the last of which worked for me these last five years but no experience of key hole nor actually heard much about it. Where are you in the world?

Ablation is far less invasive obviously. The only key hole job I have seen reports and film of is for removal of left atrial appendage to reduce stroke risk. and there is a surgical procedure called "minimaze" which is sometimes performed in UK but not under NHS I think.

Hope that helps.

BobD

[Mikee in reply to BobD]

Thanks for that BobD. I live in Cheshire and the options are both NHS. The E.P. was excellent, he explained both procedures and said that they leave it to patient choice as to which procedure is to be carried out, but as normal, I did'nt take it all in. I've read a lot about Catheter Ablation but can't find much about the Key Hole Surgery option. I don't want to try and describe what he told me about it because, as I say, I did'nt take it all in and I would probably get it all wrong. I have a while to decide so I will do as much research as I can before I do.

[MarkS]

Hi Mikee,

As Bob says, I think the EP is referring to a mini maze operation which is performed on the outside of the heart, usually performed by a cardio rather than an EP. The success rate is similar to an ablation but recovery time is longer, I think. The advice I've heard is to go for an ablation first of all then consider a mini-maze if that isn't successful after a couple of goes.

Mark

[Mikee in reply to MarkS]

Hello Mark,

thanks for your reply. Yeah that sounds like the same procedures. It would be a surgeon doing the Key Hole surgery. I was surprised I was offered the surgery so I did'nt take it all in and one of the questions that I will be asking, is, will I be able to have the surgery if Ablation fails. The E.P. did say that I could have an Ablation after the Surgery, if required, but nothing was mentioned about Surgery after Ablation.

I posted the question, because there is a lot of information about Ablation on this site and on the Internet in general, but very little about the Key Hole Surgery option. The E.P. did say that results would probably be similar but because I am longstanding with the A/F, it will almost certainly take more than one Ablation, but possibly, the Surgery could do it at the first attempt, but, as you say, and the E.P. said the same, the recovery time, and all the other things that come along with Surgery have to be considered.

I have time to make a decision and I am hoping to discuss it with my G.P. next week. so I'll see how it goes from there.

Thanks again,

Mike.

[iris1205 in reply to Mikee]

Look up the podcasts on BBC Discovery about Surgery. Great podcast. How random trials are proposed to be fair to all techniques, though the doctors often (and naturally) prefer to go with what they have experience with.... ask more questions about the keyhole if you aren't sure. But I would go with MarkS.... ablation first and then move on to other options if it doesn't work.... But that is without me not knowing anything about the keyhole surgery! Best of luck