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Updated: Aug 18, 2026

Robotic Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation
Published on: May 29, 2015
An update on electrical cardioversion of atrial fibrillation
Suneet Mittal1, Kenneth M Stein, Steven M Markowitz
1Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Cornell University Medical Center, New York, NY 10021, USA. sum2010@med.cornell.edu
Abstract:
Atrial fibrillation is the most frequently encountered sustained arrhythmia in clinical practice. Electrical cardioversion of atrial fibrillation using damped sine wave shocks has been a mainstay of therapy for nearly 4 decades; its limitation remains a failure rate that approaches 20%. Although several alternatives have been proposed, including delivering 720 J shocks using dual monophasic defibrillators, ibutilide pretreatment and internal cardioversion, each of these approaches has significant limitations, which preclude its routine use. Recent data demonstrate that routine use of biphasic shocks for cardioversion of atrial fibrillation is associated with a marked improvement in cardioversion efficacy and suggest that biphasic shocks may be the preferred method for the transthoracic electrical cardioversion of atrial fibrillation.
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