"Laser-based therapy: is the right answer for pulmonary vein isolation?"

Laser- based PVI has been around for many years and this modality of ablation is to provide a continuous circular overlapping lesions around the PVs' ostia. In order to ensure the continuity of the lesion, a camera is embedded in the system as to guide the placement of sequential applications with the target to make an adequate overlapping of two contiguous lesions as to reduce the likelihood of gaps. The first version of the system required the operator to manually rotate the catheter as to create a continuous arc of lesion around the PV's ostium. This approach is time-consuming, with a substantial overall time for each PV. The evolvement of the technique has been recently offered, with a novel semi-automated VGLA as to improve ablation efficiency by using a motorized system which moves the laser arc continuously in order to reduce the application time and, hopefully, minimize the creation of gaps. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.