Thermedical’s Durablate catheter [Photo courtesy of Thermedical]
A new cardiac ablation technique for patients with ventricular tachycardia (VT) has been used in its first in-human multicenter trial involving Mayo Clinic.The new process — needle ablation using in-catheter, heated, saline-enhanced, radio frequency (SERF) energy — creates lesion scars inside the heart muscle where life-threatening arrhythmias cause VT, Mayo Clinic said. Injecting heated saline at the same time as the RF energy is applied increases heat transfer compared to conventional methods of ablation, which means the ablation can treat tissue deeper in the heart wall than the surface.
Caused by irregular electrical signals in the lower chambers of the heart, VT can trigger heartbeats so rapid that the heart’s chambers don’t fill with blood properly. VT can also stop the heart entirely. Implantable cardioverter-defib…