Ablation of atrial fibrillation with minimally invasive mitral surgery.

With the advent of minimally invasive mitral valve surgery, transeptal exposure of the mitral valve has become increasingly popular. While this approach provides excellent exposure of the mitral valve, it necessitates development of novel strategies for concomitant ablation in patients with atrial fibrillation. We describe a technique for creation of a biatrial lesion set for atrial fibrillation ablation that is easily employed using the transeptal approach to the mitral valve.