Blogs
→
HVCA Docs in the Community
→
Dr. Sadhu Performs Cryoballoon Therapy for Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation
Posted Jan 10, 2012 12:57 pm
(129 days ago)
Subscribe to RSS feed
Dr. Ashish Sadhu is now performing the Cryoballoon treatment for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Cryoballoon therapy involves a minimally-invasive procedure that efficiently creates circumferential lesions around the pulmonary vein, which is the source of erratic electrical signals that cause the irregular heartbeat.
Balloon-based technology is novel because it ablates or blocks the conduction of atrial fibrillation (AF) in cardiac tissue through the use of a coolant rather than heat, which is delivered through a catheter. This freezing technology allows the catheter to adhere to the tissue during ablation, allowing for greater catheter stability.
According to a Medtronic News Release, “The FDA approval of the Arctic Front System was based on the pivotal STOP AF (Sustained Treatment of Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation) trial, which demonstrated the safety and efficacy of the device in treating and eradicating paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. The study showed that 69.9 percent of patients treated with Arctic Front were free from atrial fibrillation at one year, compared to 7.3 percent of patients treated with drug therapy only. The study also demonstrated that treatment with the device is safe, with limited procedure-related adverse events (3.1 percent), and patients enrolled in the study displayed a significant reduction of symptoms, a decrease in the use of drug therapy and substantial improvements in both physical and mental quality-of-life factors.”
Approximately 3 million Americans are estimated to have atrial fibrillation, and about 40 percent don’t exhibit symptoms and may be under-diagnosed. Half of all diagnosed atrial fibrillation patients fail drug therapy, and if left untreated patients have up to a five times higher risk of stroke and an increased chance of developing heart failure. Additionally, since atrial fibrillation is often age-related, as the U.S. population continues to grow older, the need for more effective treatment options is escalating. Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) is a type of atrial fibrillation in which irregular heartbeats in the upper chambers start and stop suddenly on their own, usually for minutes or days at a time.
