2024-05-09 19:31:15
MONTREAL — McGill University Health Center (MUHC) is the first health center in Quebec to offer a new intervention that is said to be faster, more effective and safer to address a problem with atrial fibrillation, the most common form of heart arrhythmia.
Pulse field ablation, as the name suggests, emits pulsating electrical fields to interrupt the irregular electrical signals that cause atrial fibrillation.
“We can use an entire treatment in a fraction of a second,” described the director of the cardiology department at the MUHC, Dr. Atul Verma.
By comparison, he continues, traditional interventions that use thermal energy can last two or three minutes. The new technology can therefore reduce the overall duration of the procedure by 30 to 50%, thereby reducing the time the patient spends under general anesthesia or deep sedation, he explained.
The patient can potentially be discharged from the hospital on the same day as the procedure, instead of having to stay overnight there. Pulsed field ablation also reduces the risk of damage to other organs, such as the esophagus or lungs, that comes with the traditional procedure, Dr. Verma added.
Atrial fibrillation can be treated with antiarrhythmic drugs, but almost half of patients will require a minimally invasive procedure aimed at removing the heart tissue causing the arrhythmia.
“I think this technique will replace all current techniques within three or four years,” predicted Dr. Verma. I truly believe that this technique represents a major advance for our practice.
Dr. Verma led a global multicenter clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Medtronic’s PulseSelect pulse field ablation system. Published by the prestigious medical journal Circulation, the results prompted Health Canada to approve the technology. A first patient was then operated on at the MUHC, outside of clinical trials, on 17 April.
Atrial fibrillation is caused by a disturbance in the heart’s electrical signals and is characterized by an irregular and often very fast heart rate. This disorder increases the risk of stroke, heart failure and the risk of death.
The problem is estimated to affect more than sixty million people around the world. In Canada, more than 5% of people over 65 suffer from it.
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