Too Old for Ablation? Insights from AF Patients Aged 80 and Above | JACC Baran

Hosts Mitsuaki Sawano, MD, Kentaro Ejiri, MD, Nobu Ikemura, MD, and Satoshi Shoji, MD welcome Dr. Shu Hirata, MD (Department of Cardiology, Nihon University Itabashi Hospital), with guest commentary from Dr. Hiroyuki Sato, MD (Tohoku University), to discuss the REHEALTH-AF Study published in JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology. Focusing on patients aged 80 years and older with atrial fibrillation—a group often underrepresented in research and less frequently considered for catheter ablation in routine practice—this prospective multicenter registry enrolled 703 clinically eligible patients (ablation n=249; non-ablation n=454) and compares ablation and non-ablation strategies with respect to symptom burden, quality of life, frailty trajectories, cognitive function, and cardiac biomarkers over one year.