BOSTON (Reuters) – A technique to treat irregular heart
beats using a method known as ablation was substantially more
effective than anti-arrhythmic drugs in a clinical trial.
A 12-month trial of 112 patients showed the ablation
technique had a 75 percent success rate in preventing
arrhythmias in patients who had failed at least one drug
regimen, compared with a success rate of just 6 percent for
patients who received drug therapy alone, according to data
presented on Saturday at a meeting of the Heart Rhythm Society
in Boston.
During ablation, a doctor inserts a catheter, or thin,
flexible tube, into the heart. A special machine delivers
energy through the catheter to areas of the heart muscle that
cause abnormal heart rhythm and disconnects that pathway.
Initially, about half the patients in the trial received
drugs alone and half received ablation. But 37 patients in the
drug group joined the ablation group because the drugs were not
adequately controlling their arrhythmia, according to Dr.
Pierre Jais, a cardiologist at Haut-Leveque Hospital in France,
who led the trial.
Of the millions of patients who suffer from atrial
fibrillation, only about 30,000 a year are treated using
ablation, Jais said. That could change with trials such as this
one, he said.
“If you speak to people who are performing ablation, all
will tell you that ablation works better than drugs, but these
people are a minority of cardiologists,” he said. “Most
cardiologists are not convinced.”
While ablation has been performed for more than a decade,
it has only matured within the last few years. As its success
rate has risen, so has interest in the procedure, Jais said.
The next step is to conduct a trial to see whether people
who are treated with ablation live longer than those who just
take drugs.
The latest trial followed patients for a year, but Jais
said he feels confident the benefit likely extends out as far
as a decade or more.
“My feeling is that if you don’t have a recurrence a year
after the process the risk of getting one after that is
extremely limited,” he said.
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