What is atrial fibrillation? Atrial fibrillation, is a condition in which the heart’s electrical signaling system is completely disrupted. In normal people, the heart beats regularly and neatly, and this neat rhythm is regulated and transmitted by the heart’s electrical system through electrical signals, called the cardiac conduction system. The heart is the powerhouse of life, like a finely crafted pump that keeps the blood pumping continuously since the beginning of life to keep it running. The heart works accurately like a spreadsheet, increasing the heart rate when the body is exercising and decreasing it at rest. Arrhythmia occurs when the heart’s rhythm or heart rate changes due to an abnormality in the origin or conduction system of the heart’s signals. Atrial fibrillation, on the other hand, is completely out of order, the rhythm is completely disrupted, and the efficiency of the heart’s work decreases as a result. Atrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia in the elderly. The incidence of atrial fibrillation in the general population is about 1%, and there are about 10 million Chinese with atrial fibrillation. The incidence of atrial fibrillation increases by 1.4 times for every 10 years of age, rising to more than 10% in the elderly. Atrial fibrillation has been recognized for a long time. 4,000 years ago, the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine described atrial fibrillation as “uneven”, referring to the irregularity of the pulse rhythms, the unevenness of three to five, the discrepancy, and the misalignment. When atrial fibrillation occurs, the rhythm of the heart becomes disordered, and the patient will have the feeling of cardiac discomfort: some people feel that their heart beats faster, and their chest seems to be pushed up, and they can’t catch their breath; some people can feel their heart violently hitting their chest, and make the sound of “dong dong…”; and some people can feel their own pulse, and can feel that their pulse beats irregularly. Some people feel their pulse and can also feel that it is not beating neatly. At this point, you have to think that atrial fibrillation may be the cause. Atrial fibrillation is by no means a “benign” disease. Some people think that atrial fibrillation is just a heart rhythm disorder, and it’s good to get used to it, but it’s not: when atrial fibrillation occurs, the heart loses its neat working rhythm, resulting in the heart’s working efficiency dropping drastically by 30%, causing the heart’s function to drop, and even the occurrence of acute left heart failure, which can endanger the life of the heart; chronic atrial fibrillation over a long period of time also results in gradual enlargement of the heart, and the heart’s function decreases. lead to gradual enlargement of the heart and deteriorating heart function, making life expectancy decrease. The most problematic aspect of atrial fibrillation is the high incidence of cerebrovascular events, with almost one-third of patients with atrial fibrillation eventually suffering a stroke. Studies have shown that atrial fibrillation is an independent risk factor for stroke, with more than 15% of strokes caused by atrial fibrillation. The incidence of cerebral embolism in patients with chronic atrial fibrillation with non-valvular disease is five times higher than in normal people, and in patients with chronic atrial fibrillation with valvular disease, the incidence of cerebral embolism is 17 times higher than in normal people. In the elderly population, atrial fibrillation is combined with stroke in 25% of patients. Therefore, patients with atrial fibrillation must take anticoagulant drugs for life. How is atrial fibrillation checked and treated? Many people have experienced palpitations, chest tightness and other discomforts. How can you tell if these symptoms are caused by atrial fibrillation or other arrhythmias? A general electrocardiogram (ECG) or 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiogram (EKG) is the most important non-invasive test for diagnosing arrhythmia. It can record your current electrical activity and detect the problem in time when your heart is not functioning properly, so that you can determine whether you have an arrhythmia or not, and what kind of arrhythmia it is. An ambulatory electrocardiogram (ECG) is a small portable recorder that can record your heartbeat for up to 24 hours without interfering with your daily work and activities. The treatment for arrhythmia is different for different types of arrhythmia, such as medication, electrical cardioversion, radiofrequency ablation, pacemaker, and so on. How is atrial fibrillation treated? Auntie Zhao, 70 years old, has been suffering from atrial fibrillation for one and a half years. At first, it was only a paroxysmal attack that lasted for a few hours each time and then relieved on its own, and she just took some Chinese medicines without considering surgery. But in the last six months, she realized that AF had become persistent and the medication didn’t seem to help. So she went to the Cardiac Electrophysiology Center of Pearl River Hospital to find Director Yang Pingzhen, and did a cardiac ultrasound to find that her heart had begun to get bigger. Director Yang explained that “atrial fibrillation can lead to atrial fibrillation,” which means that atrial fibrillation itself can affect the heart, making it larger, which makes it easier to maintain, and paroxysmal atrial fibrillation can eventually turn into persistent atrial fibrillation. Although atrial fibrillation is a heart disease, radiofrequency ablation is a minimally invasive procedure that does not involve incisions, but just feeds a 2-millimeter-thick ablation catheter through a punctured vein in the leg like a needle, and improves the heart’s circuits like an electrosurgical knife, with no implanted materials, making the procedure safe and reliable. So Auntie Zhao accepted the suggestion and underwent the surgery. Sure enough, the surgery went well and normal rhythm was restored after the surgery. Auntie Zhao felt that her heart became relaxed as if a heavy burden had been lifted, and she could go down to the floor on the same day of the surgery, and was discharged from the hospital on the second day after the surgery. How is radiofrequency ablation of atrial fibrillation performed? In recent years, scientists have realized that the pulmonary veins and the surrounding atrial tissues are the key areas for the maintenance of atrial fibrillation. On the one hand, the fast currents from the pulmonary veins are easy to show fibrillation-like conduction here, and on the other hand, it is easy to form the folding back and rapid agitation here, thus maintaining the atrial fibrillation wave. Until 1999, the application of computer-assisted cardiac three-dimensional image reconstruction technology has made the radiofrequency ablation of atrial fibrillation gradually applied to clinical practice, and has ushered in the development of atrial fibrillation. Until 1999, the application of computer-assisted three-dimensional cardiac image reconstruction technology enabled radiofrequency ablation of atrial fibrillation to be gradually applied in clinical practice, ushering in the era of minimally invasive surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. This technology originated from the U.S. military satellite science and technology, drawing on the principle of GPS positioning, through the magnetic field and electric field positioning, so that the cardiac structure through the ablation catheter to achieve three-dimensional anatomical reconstruction, so that the abnormalities of the cardiac circuitry is undoubtedly revealed, through the abnormal disordered line ablation, isolation, blocking, to achieve the effect of similar to the surgical “labyrinthine surgery”. The result is similar to a surgical “labyrinth operation”.