Advances in pre-operative imaging and diagnostics “will soon allow us to better define the mechanisms of atrial fibrillation in each individual patient” to produce “startling improvement” in treating AF.

— Ralph Damiano, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis) giving an optimistic prediction about the future of atrial fibrillation surgery during a presentation this week at the Society of Thoracic Surgeons annual meeting, “Open surgery vs. percutaneous is a quiet but intense debate,” pp. 1, 5, 9.