mini maze

[bonana]

I have been in Atrial Fib for about 10 years. I am now going to a cardiologist that wants to due a minu maze surgery. How dangerous is this operation?

[Jerry_NJ]

I take it you are talking about a robotic min-maze.   Open heart surgery for mini-maze is a bit risky and not normally done unless there are other reasons, e.g., repair a valve.  That's what happened to me in November 2007.  The surgery was to repair a mitral valve, and as I also suffered from AFib (may have been caused by the leaky mitral valve) a mini-maze was done.  Following surgery and for about a month after I was in sinus rhythm, but that ended.

The effectiveness of the maze is less than 100% and in fact get to be rather poor odds for those of us who have had full-time AFib and also have an enlarged left atrial.  I believe mine is about 5.4 cm, anything over 5 cm is problematic.

Not trying to put the procedure down, just putting in the reality I know.

Let us know what you decide and how it goes if you have the procedure done.

[Tjoyce]

Hi,  I googled this and it looks great to me.  Where do you live as this is so new not many doctors have even been trained to do it yet but I would love it if my husband could have it performed as it looks like the best thing so far, and no drug side effects!  Let me know.  Tjoyce