NHLBI IN THE PRESS

CABANA trial: Results are in and they are mixed

Compared to drug therapies, catheter ablation, a common cardiovascular procedure, didn’t achieve a significant reduction of strokes, deaths, and other complications in patients with atrial fibrillation. However, patients who get the procedure experience much greater symptom relief and long-term improvements in the quality of life than those who only get drugs.

These were the findings of two new studies, published in the March 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, reporting the outcomes of the Catheter Ablation versus Antiarrhythmic Drug Therapy for Atrial Fibrillation (CABANA) trial.

Funded in part by NHLBI, CABANA is a randomized trial that compared state-of-the-art drug therapies for atrial fibrillation—an irregular heartbeat—to ablation, a procedure in which a doctor inserts a catheter through a patient’s blood vessels to scar or destroy heart tissue causing the irregularities.

Read the papers

Effect of Catheter Ablation vs Antiarrhythmic Drug Therapy on Mortality, Stroke, Bleeding, and Cardiac Arrest Among Patients With Atrial Fibrillation The CABANA Randomized Clinical Trial

Effect of Catheter Ablation vs Medical Therapy on Quality of Life Among Patients With Atrial Fibrillation The CABANA Randomized Clinical Trial

Editorial: Catheter Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation. Lessons Learned From CABANA