One of the consequences of the damage to a heart caused by infection or a heart attack is scarring of cardiac muscle tissue. In some cases the scarring leads to a type of arrhythmia called ventricular tachycardia, in which the patient suffers from a rapid and uncontrolled heart rate and a feeling of dizziness and lightheadedness. The standard treatment is generally a surgical procedure, in which the scarred region is burned off via a catheter inserted into the heart. But the surgical procedure carries some risk, and in some patients it just doesn't work.
An experimental non-invasive technique offers hope to these patients. Borrowing a technique used to treat cancer patients, the new procedure uses targeted radiation to ablate the offending tissue. During the procedure the patient wears a vest that incorporates 256 electrocardiogram leads as opposed to the usual 10, allowing precise targeting of the region to be ablated.
The procedure seems to work well - the first five patients went from more than 6,500 episodes of tachycardia in three months to just four episodes in a year, according to an article in The New York Times. Further research will be needed to determine the long-term consequences and safety of the procedure, but some day, targeted radiation could become the method of choice for patients suffering from ventricular tachycardia.
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