1Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation with Anti-arrhythmic Drugs or Radio Frequency Ablation: Two Systematic Literature Reviews and Meta-analyses

2Background: Although radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFA) has evolved from an experimental procedure to an important treatment option for atrial fibrillation (AF), the relative safety and efficacy of catheter ablation relative to that of antiarrhythmic drug (AAD) therapy has not been established. Methods and Results: Two separate systematic reviews were conducted, 1 on RFA and the other on AAD so as to provide accurate and broadly representative estimates of the clinical efficacy and safety of both therapies in the treatment of AF. Electronic searches were conducted in EMBASE and MEDLINE from 1990 to 2007. For the RFA review, all study designs were accepted. For the AAD review, papers were limited to prospective studies on the following drugs of interest: amiodarone, dofetilide, sotalol, flecainide, and propafenone. Data were extracted by 1 reviewer, with a second reviewer performing independent confirmation of extracted data. Sixty-three RFA and 34 AAD studies were included in the reviews. Patients enrolled in RFA studies tended to be younger (mean age 55 vs. 62 years), had longer duration of AF (6.0 vs. 3.1 years), and had failed a greater number of prior drug trials (2.6 vs. 1.7). The single procedure success rate of ablation off AAD therapy was 57 % (95 % [confidence interval] CI 50%–64%), th