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16-year-old Staszek was saved by a pioneering procedure performed by a team of cardiologists and cardiac surgeons from a hospital in Poznań. In order for the teenager’s heart to function properly again, it was necessary to have a complicated operation called double ablation. A week has passed since the surgery. The patient is fine. Gazeta Wyborcza wrote about the innovative treatment.
- Ablation is a recognized method of treating cardiac arrhythmias and saving lives. It is performed using the so-called current. radio frequency. It consists in destroying or isolating from a healthy heart the areas that cause rhythm disturbances.
- Double (hybrid) ablation is a rarely used procedure, incl. due to the high risk of complications
- The double ablation procedure was performed in a 16-year-old patient by doctors from a hospital in Poznań – a team of pediatric cardiologists and cardiac surgeons
- More similar information can be found on the TvoiLokony website
Ablation is the standard treatment for various types of cardiac arrhythmias, but Double ablation – and such ablation was used by a 16-year-old – is a much more complicated procedure, it means the elimination of the source of the arrhythmia not only inside the heart, but also from the outside. It is technically difficult to perform and is associated with the risk of numerous complications. It is rarely performed, especially in children. Doctors from the Clinical Hospital Karol Jonscher in Poznań for the first time operated on such a young patient with this method.
Serious arrhythmia and congenital heart disease
16-year-old Staszek not only suffered from a serious arrhythmia, but also has another heart defect with which he was born. He has a malformed right atrium and a defect in the atrial septum. This necessitated a procedure other than routine ablation. Doctors had to eliminate the source of the arrhythmia not only from the inside of the heart, but also from the outside. The procedure was performed without opening the chest.
- Also read: Ablation – indications, contraindications, course
The boy was hospitalized when he began to feel worse, complained of heart palpitations, fatigue and chest pain. ECG and echocardiography were performed, which allowed for the diagnosis.
Ablation destroys the focus of arrhythmia
Ablation is a recognized, safe and effective method of treating the causes of most recurrent cardiac arrhythmias. It is a recognized alternative to chronic pharmacological treatment. It involves the destruction of, or isolation from, the healthy heart of areas that cause arrhythmias.
- Also read: Heart defects
As Dr. hab. med. Artur Baszko, Poznań electrophysiologist and cardiologist: — Life-saving therapy in cases of complex arrhythmias is ablation, which is a procedure performed with the use of the so-called current. radio frequency or by cryoablation (i.e. freezing). Its purpose is to create a small scar in the heart that stops the incorrect conduction of electrical signals or destroys the foci responsible for the heart rhythm that is often lethal for the child. (…) In Staszek’s case, this turned out to be insufficient, because the incorrect additional pathway conducting electrical impulses ran in a hard-to-reach place, deep in the heart muscle. This place, with an abnormal structure of the atrium, could only be accessible from the outside of the heart, the so-called epicardial space. And that meant that in order to destroy the change, we had to do a double ablation: both from the inside of the heart and from the outside.
- Also read: Arrhythmia – symptoms, causes and treatment of arrhythmias [EXPLAINED]
Operation without opening the chest
The hybrid ablation procedure on the teenager’s heart was performed by a team of pediatric cardiologists (Dr. Artur Baszko, MD, Krzysztof Czyż, and Agata Łaźniak-Pfeifer, MD), who inserted the electrodes into the outer part of the heart. Pediatric cardiac surgeons (Dr. Przemysław Westerski and Dr. Jacek Kleszcz) collaborated with cardiologists. They made a small laparoscopic incision – a small opening in the chest. The operation lasted almost four hours, but it proved successful. The doctors did not report the result until about a week later, when the boy felt well.
The Department of Children’s Electrophysiology in Poznań has already performed over 1000 ablation procedures, including over 70 in children under five. Doctors from Poznań treated even infants with this method.
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