DOHA: The Heart Hospital has introduced a new technology- cryoballoon ablation- for treatment of atrial fibrillation, the most common type of irregular heart beat.
The hospital conducted the first successful surgery using this technique, in what is said to be a first in the region.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) causes the upper chambers of the heart to beat too fast, inhibiting the movement of blood in and out of the heart. It diminishes a person’s overall quality of life with symptoms like fatigue, shortness of breath and chest pain, while also significantly increasing their risk of stroke and heart failure.
AF is often treated with drug therapy, but for many patients drugs alone are not sufficient to ease the suffering.
During this minimally invasive procedure, doctors insert a balloon catheter into a blood vessel in the upper leg and snake it through the circulatory system until it reaches the heart. Once in place, the balloon is inflated and extremely cold energy flows through the catheter, freezing the heart tissue that is causing the irregular heart beat.
In cryoablation, the balloon freezes the whole vein at once rather than burning several points of the vein, as is done during radiofrequency ablation, another common treatment for AF.
The Peninsula
