Surgical treatment of cardiac arrhythmias.

This report describes 20 consecutive patients who underwent surgical procedures for treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. 16 patients have been operated for WPW syndrome, always using the epicardial approach, without extracorporeal circulation. Three patients underwent surgery for atrio-ventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia, using a discrete perinodal cryotreatment, during normothermic extracorporeal circulation. In one case we used cryoablation of the atrial myocardium below the coronary sinus to treat atrial flutter. This operation was performed under normothermic extracorporeal circulation. In our observations, there was no early or late death; postoperative complications developed in 1 patient (5%) due to pericarditis. Ablation of the AP was completely successful in all the cases (100%) operated for WPW as well as for AVNRT syndromes and atrial flutter.