Treating an Abnormal Heartbeat

A condition called atrial fibrillation produces an abnormal heartbeat. People feel their heart race and they lose their breath. It may last a few seconds, but it can get worse and worse with age, leading to a heart attack or stroke.

Doctors generally treat atrial fibrillation with drugs. But a new study shows that another treatment may have better results for patients who were not helped by drug therapy.

The treatment is called catheter ablation. Doctors place a long thin tube called a catheter into the heart. Then they use radio frequency energy to heat the tissue around the catheter. The goal is to block abnormal electrical activity in the heart.

Researchers studied more than one hundred fifty patients who had failed to respond to at least one drug in the past. In the study, about one hundred of them had catheter ablation. The others were treated with more drugs.

Dr. David Wilber at Loyola University Medical Center in Illinois was the lead author of the study. He says catheter ablation worked in sixty to seventy percent of the patients.

But Dr. Wilber says catheter ablation is not meant to be the first treatment choice for atrial fibrillation. He suggests it only when drug therapy fails to work.

Doctors can also use catheters to open blocked arteries that supply blood to the heart. That happened last week with Bill Clinton. The former president had a procedure called an angioplasty. Doctors used a catheter and placed two mesh tubes, called stents, into a blocked artery to help keep it open.

The American College of Cardiology says one in five patients who receive angioplasty has already had heart bypass surgery. That includes Bill Clinton. He had a major operation because of blockages in two thousand four. Doctors say it is common for heart patients to need new stents over time.