Patent ID: 7918847

Claim:
A method for treating atrial fibrillation comprising: obtaining at least one measurement with a measurement device associated with an atria selected from the group consisting of effective refractory period, wavelength, tissue surface area, tissue weight, maximum tissue width, minimum tissue width, average tissue width, conduction velocity and maximum conduction velocity; performing a multivariable logistic regression analysis, with a processor, to determine atrial tissue section areas that will prevent atrial fibrillation; designing a set of lesions based on probabilities generated from the multivariable logistic regression analysis that provided the atrial tissue section areas; creating the designed lesions with a cutting or ablation device to obtain the atrial tissue section areas in order to significantly reduce the probability of sustained atrial fibrillation, wherein the multivariable logistic regression analysis includes the equation for determining atrial fibrillation being: AF=exp (x) /[1+exp (x) ] where x=constant+β 0 (variable 1)+β 1 (variable 2) and x is selected from the group consisting of effective refractory period, wavelength, tissue area, tissue weight, maximum tissue width, minimum tissue width, average tissue width, conduction velocity and maximum conduction velocity and β 0 and β 1 are constants; wherein AF is the probability of atrial fibrillation so that if an acceptable probability of atrial fibrillation is utilized, a value for the variable 1 and the variable 2 can be determined.