Table 1.

Technologies and techniques promising to reduce pulmonary vein reconnection (PVR) and arrhythmia recurrences after pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) in patients with atrial fibrillation.

RF ablation

•contact force monitoring •automated algorithms of real-time adjustment of contact force, power and time of RF application •visualization of lesion formation •controlling inter-lesion distance/ablation line contiguity/catheter stability

Cryothermic ablation

•Second/third generation cryoballoons with improved thermodynamic features •Complete balloon occlusion of the PV •Real-time monitoring of PVI (PV potential elimination)

Both RF- and Cryo-ablation

•Inter-PV carina and PV-LAA ridge ablation