Posted by Jack Drum on February 11, 2003 at 15:38:47:
In Reply to: long term results posted by Jimmy Cull on February 11, 2003 at 11:57:44:
Jimmy, the first maze was done 15 years ago, and that was George Dheere. George has posted on the board before, and as far as I know he is still well.
I started this board in 2000, and I had my maze April 10, 1998, and still well, and plan on living several years, but only God know for sure.
There is no reason to expect anything from curing AF except that it is going to lengthen your life. If I had not had the maze, I don't think I would of been living now.
Here is a portion of a letter where Dr. Cox gives his account of the first mazers.George Dheere is the first person to ever have an operation for atrial fibrillation, though it was called the Atrial Transsection
Procedure. That was done in 1986. About a year later (September 25, 1987), I did the first Maze procedure on a patient from Alton,
Illinois named Carl Bess. A few months later (February, 1988), I converted George Dheere's procedure to a Maze procedure. He
had 7 months of atrial flutter and we eventually successfully cured his problem with a catheter on September 7, 1988.
Another interesting point. The original Maze procedure was called the Maze-I. 32 people had it. The next version was the
Maze-II and only 15 people had it. The final version was the Maze-III which has been used exclusively since April, 1992 and is the
one that everyone now gets. The conversion of the Atrial Transsection Procedure to the Maze procedure in George Dheere resulted
in what eventually later turned out to be the Maze-III. Therefore, I have always reported George as being the first Maze-III patient.
J. Cox