Faster recovery, better outcomes: New technology helps patients with AFib regain a steady heartbeat
The number of people diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib) is increasing each year – and a new treatment is giving patients another option to help the racing heart and potential heart problems AFib brings.
Atrial fibrillation is an irregular heartbeat. It can lead to blood clots in the heart, which increases the risk for stroke and heart failure. People describe it as a fast, pounding, or fluttering heartbeat. The irregular heartbeat can happen occasionally or constantly.
The new treatment, called pulsed field ablation is available at three M Health Fairview hospitals: St. John’s Hospital, Southdale Hospital, and University of Minnesota Medical Center.
Pulsed field ablation has many advantages
Pulsed field ablation delivers pulses of high-voltage electric current directly to the heart tissue. It causes scarring in a precise location in the heart tissue. That scarring helps control irregular electrical impulses that cause the heart to beat out of normal rhythm. A steady rhythm can reduce the risk of a future stroke or heart failure. Pulsed field ablation was approved by the FDA in 2023.
“Pulsed field ablation can be tuned to effectively deliver energy to heart cells, but can avoid the risk of injury to tissues nearby the heart like the breathing nerves and the esophagus,” said Dilusha William, MD, a cardiac electrophysiologist with M Health Fairview St. John’s Hospital.
Pulsed field ablation is done in a catheter-based outpatient procedure. With the patient under anesthesia, the ablation device is inserted through a small incision usually in the patient’s groin, and then threaded through a vein to the heart. With the device in place, the energy is delivered. The procedure usually takes about an hour. The patient then recovers in the hospital for two to three hours before they go home.
“We generally ask people to take it easy for about one week post procedure," William said. “It's reasonable to expect a bit of a sore throat from having the breathing tube in place, a bit of discomfort from the ablation itself, and a bruise at the incision site, but after a week it's back to life as normal.”
Studies comparing pulsed field ablation to the traditional method of using thermal ablation – heat or cooling energy to scar the heart tissue – have been promising.
“We know that success rates are a little bit better with pulsed field as compared to thermal energy,” William said. “From a patient perspective, it ends up being a slightly more effective and a safer means of ablation for atrial fibrillation.”
Patients typically spend less time under anesthesia and the recovery tends to be better, William said.
“It’s difficult for us to say that we have definitively cured atrial fibrillation arrhythmia,” William said. “We think of atrial fibrillation as something that we suppress, something that we manage. We hope for any one individual that a single ablation will provide them the effective equivalent of a cure.”
Increasing recognition of AFib
Smartwatches are alerting wearers to changes in their heart rhythm and leading more people to get their hearts checked. Once at healthcare clinics, AFib recognition and diagnosis has also improved. These factors are leading to an increase in atrial fibrillation diagnoses.
Signs of AFib include:
- Racing heart, even at rest
- Chest pain
- Fatigue
- Shortness of breath
- Lightheadedness
- Dizziness
“In years past, they may not have had a good explanation for these symptoms,” William said. “But with the diagnostics we have, as well as some of the tools available to patients, the link between atrial fibrillation and these symptoms is coming to light for people.”
If you think you are experiencing atrial fibrillation or your smartwatch alerts you to an irregular heartbeat, let your primary care provider or cardiologist know. They can connect you to electro cardiologists like William.
