EDITORIAL Atrial deformation: the key to maintenance of sinus rhythm in patients with atrial fibrillation?

This editorial refers to ‘Strain rate imaging for functional quantification of the left atrium: atrial deformation predicts the maintenance of sinus rhythm after catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation’ † by C. Schneider et al., on page 1397 (Volume 29 number 11 June 2008) Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common serious arrhythmia encountered in clinical practice, and accounts for approximately one-third of all hospitalizations for cardiac rhythm disturbances.1 Consequently, effective therapies for conversion of AF to, and maintenance of, sinus rhythm (SR) have been actively sought. Cur-rently, catheter-based ablation techniques have been shown to be promising in the elimination of AF. However, a significant percen-tage of patients undergoing catheter ablation have recurrence of AF; in one recent study, only 64 % of patients with paroxysmal and 45 % of patients with persistent AF were AF-free at 1