Dr. James Cox: Rationale for Concomitant Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation

https://www.afibsurgeons.org - Dr. James Cox reviews the rationale for concomitant treatment including the evidence for favorable outcomes and the surgeon reported objections as to why they don’t currently treat atrial fibrillation in concomitant settings. When discussing the current state of concomitant treatment, Dr. Cox says "Each year of the 400,000 or so cardiac surgical procedures that are done in the United States, there are a little over 100,000 of them entering our operating rooms each year already having atrial fibrillation associated with their primary problem. Today, we operate on about 21,000 of those. In other words, we treat about 20 to 21% of patients, and the other 79 or 80% of the patients are ignored. This means that four out of five of the patients who already have atrial fibrillation and who re already coming to our operating rooms for other types of surgery like coronary, aortic, or mitral valve surgery leave the operating room without their atrial fibrillation having been treated."