New heart ablation method aims to boost success for persistent AF patients

This study tested whether adding a personalized ablation approach called OPTIMA to the standard pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) procedure could improve outcomes for people with persistent atrial fibrillation (AF). About 67 adults with persistent AF were randomly assigned to receive either PVI alone or PVI plus OPTIMA, which uses MRI scans and computer modeling to identify specific areas in the heart that trigger AF. The goal was to see if the combined approach could increase the number of patients free from AF one year after the procedure.