Left Atrial Appendage Occlusion with Amplatzer Cardiac Plug and Amplatzer Amulet: a Clinical Trials Update

It has been over a decade since dedicated Amplatzer devices have been used for left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) in patients with atrial fibrillation. The first was the Amplatzer Cardiac Plug (ACP) that is now replaced in most countries by the Amplatzer Amulet device. Most of the clinical data for ACP come from the ACP multicenter registry that included 1047 patients from 22 sites, whereas the largest to date report on the Amplatzer Amulet is a recently published prospective multicenter study in 1088 patients from 64 sites. Two important randomized clinical trials the Amulet IDE trial and the STROKECLOSE trial are currently enrolling patients and expected to provide more data on LAAO with Amplatzer Amulet in the near future.