FIRE and ICE: The quest for the perfect modality in atrial fibrillation ablation

Abstract

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia in clinical practice. Catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation plays an important role in the management of AF. Radiofrequency ablation is widely used in practice all over the world. Cryoablation has emerged as an alternative method for AF ablation. The FIRE and ICE trial was a non inferiority, multicentre, randomized trial that compared between the two modalities and proved cryoablation to be non inferior to radiofrequency in terms of efficacy and safety. However, the rate of AF recurrence was markedly high in both arms of the study.