Figure 1.
Major health modifiers promoting recurrent atrial fibrillation (orange boxes) and the likely intermediary mechanisms causing atrial damage and leading to atrial fibrillation (open boxes, top part, health modifiers taken from Fabritz et al.89). The green boxes at the bottom illustrate interventions that can mitigate or reverse these effects. These ancillary interventions should be an integral part of the management of patients undergoing catheter ablation of persistent atrial fibrillation.