Map To Boost Irregular Heartbeat Treatment

A new colour-coded diagram will help doctors treat people with irregular heartbeat more accurately.

Atrial fibrillation is the most common type of irregular heartbeat, affecting an estimated 4.5 million people in the EU. About ten per cent of over-70s suffer from atrial fibrillation, and the number is likely to increase with the aging population and increased obesity.

Treatment usually involves attempts to alter the pace of the heart rate using surgical or catheter-based therapies.

Because these procedures can be risky, doctors and engineers at Leicester University, UK, devised a new way of mapping the heart's electrical signals with a colour map of abnormal signals.

They believe this will allow cardiologists to target the signals with unprecedented accuracy, and could be beneficial for millions of people with atrial fibrillation.

Researcher Dr Fernando Schlindwein said: "A catheter is a very thin tube that is inserted in the patient's femoral vein (usually) and guided into the patient's heart, wherein it can record from or deliver electrical signals to the heart.

"The ablation catheter delivers high-energy radiofrequency waves to 'burn' and kill the cells that are responsible for the heart rhythm disturbance once identified. This technique essentially enables us to identify regions of the heart which shows the best promise of a good outcome with ablation."

Dr Andre Ng added: "Catheter ablation is a new and effective treatment aimed at 'curing' patients of atrial fibrillation. Much research effort is currently focused on improving the success and safety of the procedure with the least amount of 'burning' and best outcome."