Downloads : Monitoring atrial fibrillation: how frequent is enough?

"Currently there is no definition of treatment success or an accepted method for follow-up of patients with AF. How long do we have to monitor to measure what endpoint? This depends on the characteristics of the patient population. Asymptomatic recurrences of AF are one of the key problems to define treatment results. After AF ablation we have observed an increase in the number of patients having only asymptomatic AF. Monitoring for AF recurrences should include asymptomatic episodes implying long term surveillance of the ECG. Guidelines underline the importance of recurrence detection for rhythm control therapies and recognize continuous ECG monitoring as the gold standard."