Mapping and ablation of atrial arrhythmia after valve surgery plus mini-maze procedure

Background Recurrent atrial arrhythmia is very common in patients after mitral valve surgery plus mini-maze procedure.Investigation about the mechanism for these patients may have important implication to improve the surgery strategy.Methods Mini-maze procedure was defined as follow: Pulmonary vein encircling incision and roof line connecting the two circles lesion,left atrial isthmus lesion,and the right atrial isthmus lesion.There were 517 patients with rheumatic valvular disease and pre-operative atrial fibrillation (AF) undergoing valve surgery plus mini-maze procedure in our hospital in the last 3 years,and 93 patients(18%) had recurrent atrial arrhythmia.Twelve patients(6 males and 6 females,mean age 53.8±7.8 ys) underwent electrophysiological study using 3-D mapping system(10 pts) or conventional mapping method(2 pts).Results The first recurrent time from surgery was 4.4±2.2 months.The mean follow-up time after catheter ablation was(12.0±6.0) months.One patient with sinus bradycardia had recurrent incessant atrial tachycardia (AT),but the AT was terminated by catheter position and never could be induced any more.She underwent a repeat procedure but failed just as the course in the first time, and was treated with DDDR pacemaker plus amiodarone.Six patients had 10 kinds of stable AT,including 5 at right atrial isthmus,2 at roof line,1 related to right atrial incision, 1 at anterior wall of left atrial,and 1 related to left superior pulmonary vene.All the stable AT were eliminated and remained sinus rhythm.Three patients had ATs with variable cycle length and the 3-D mapping suggested macro-reentry AT around mitral annulus.We tried to ablate at routine mitral isthmus and also in coronary sinus,but could not reach bi-directional conduction blocking.The other 2 patients were AF with reconnection at all previous ablation sites.Ablation strategy for AF included lesion at re-conduction sites and complex fractionated atrial electrogram.The patients with AF and mitral isthmus related AT were administrated with DC cardioversion and then took amiodarone.One AT and one AF recurred. Conclusions The recurrent atrial arrhythmia after mini-maze mostly related to reconnection at previous lesion sites and catheter ablation for AT could have a high success rate.It would be very hard to block mitral isthmus after valve replacement,so transmural lesion during surgery procedure is the most important strategy for preventing postoperative atrial arrhythmia.

Efficacy and Tolerability of Thermocoagulation Treatment of High-Grade Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia

Purpose: Cervical cancer is still one of the main causes of cancer and mortality in women, especially in low- and middle-income countries, although it is a completely preventable disease through the detection and treatment of pre-cancer lesions. We evaluated the efficacy and tolerability of thermocoagulation treatment of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN 2 and 3). Methods: We evaluated 115 women with high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, 54 with CIN 2 and 61 with CIN 3, confirmed by biopsy and without previous treatment, from January 2016 to December 2018, undergoing thermocoagulation treatment at the Lower Genital Tract Pathology and Colposcopy Service of the Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, Brazil. Results: The mean age was 33.11 years (SD = 9.83) for CIN 2 and 35.28 years (SD = 7.97) for CIN 3 patients. Treatment efficacy was 90.8% in CIN 2 and 94.9% in CIN 3 cases. Pain was the main symptom reported at the time of treatment, occurring more frequently in the CIN 3 group (49.1% versus 27.8% in the CIN 2 group). As the more important long-term complication, there were 3 cases of pelvic inflammatory disease in CIN 2 (5.6%) and 3 in CIN 3 group (5.0%). The percentage of residual lesion was very low in both groups, 5 in CIN 2 group (9.2%) and 2 in CIN 3 group (3.4%). Conclusion: Thermocoagulation is an effective method for the treatment of cervical pre-cancer lesions (CIN 2 and CIN 3), with a low risk of adverse events and complications.