clinical update publication

Mapping System Helps Doctors Visualize the Heart

Deborah has once again enhanced its arsenal of treatment options, this time for patients suffering from paroxysmal tachycardia, a sudden, rapid rhythm of the heart. The Center’s new Biosense Webster CARTO™ XP EP Navigation System, called a mapping system, allows Deborah’s electrophysiologists to diagnose, treat and eliminate a wide range of abnormal heart rhythms, many of which were previously referred out to other institutions.

“The CARTO XP System makes a three-dimensional, color-coded map of the heart’s rhythm disturbances that actually shows arrhythmias in real time,” explained Raffaele Corbisiero, MD, Director of Deborah’s Electrophysiology Department.
According to Dr. Corbisiero, the Biosense Webster CARTO XP EP Navigation System provides unprecedented views into the electrical activity of the heart through real-time data, allowing electrophysiologists to observe complex spatial relationships within the heart by using a 3-D electro anatomical map to visualize a patient’s electrical conduction system, color-coding and superimposing the image on to the map. This real-time feature reduces unnecessary radiation exposure, shortens procedure times, and minimizes Radio Frequency (RF) applications.

While most arrhythmias can be controlled by medications that are considered relatively safe for patients who have no other incidences of heart disease, heart attack, or hypertension, a variety of side effects often cause patients to avoid taking their medications regularly, or at all.

“It’s hard to take medication every day, especially for a problem that usually occurs infrequently,” said Dr. Corbisiero. “It is even harder given that most medications have side effects. Ablation is a superior choice to medications as it offers a cure.”
Radio Frequency ablation, which cures 98 percent of common cardiac arrhythmias, is a non-surgical treatment in which a catheter is passed into the heart to target the precise area of the heart tissue causing the arrhythmia. Once targeted, energy within the radio frequency spectrum is delivered to the tip of the device, which heats and dries the cells so they can no longer conduct electricity. With the addition of the new system, more complicated and rare arrhythmias, such as atrial tachycardia and ventricular tachycardia, can now be corrected, and in the coming months, Deborah will begin using the system to ablate patients with the most dangerous of arrhythmias - atrial fibrillation.
“This new System not only contributes to our Lab efficiency, it creates greater efficacy, allows us to cure a wider spectrum of abnormalities, and permits an increase in the number of cases we can perform,” explained Dr. Corbisiero. “The greatest benefit is that Deborah can now provide its patients and referring physicians with the full spectrum of electrophysiology services.”

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