Your heartbeat is the rhythm you march to every day, and your heart works tirelessly to support your daily functions and keep you moving forward. But sometimes, your heart rhythm can become irregular, causing symptoms that affect your life. Atrial fibrillation, or AFib, is the most common type of arrhythmia, affecting nearly 12.1 million Americans. If left untreated, its side effects can lead to more serious health concerns.
But you can find peace of mind knowing that at AdventHealth, our cardiac specialists are pioneers in minimally invasive procedures like atrial fibrillation ablation, and they dedicate themselves to helping you steady your heart.
Keep reading to learn from Sambit Mondal, MD, an expert clinical cardiac electrophysiologist at AdventHealth Altamonte Springs, about how ablation can treat patients with AFib, and find out if it’s right for you.
The Ins and Outs of AFib
“Atrial fibrillation can be thought of as chaotic, disorganized discharges of electricity in the upper left chamber of the heart,” says Dr. Mondal. “These malfunctioning electrical circuits cause parts of the heart to not contract as they’re supposed to, leading to fibrillation or quivers in the heart.” For some, AFib can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. But for others, it could be present for a year or longer.
“Common symptoms of AFib are fatigue, decreased exercise capacity and lethargy,” says Dr. Mondal. “For patients with AFib, it’s typical for us to hear them say they experience lack of energy, fatigue and sometimes shortness of breath when performing activities that they used to do with ease. Palpitations and awareness that the heart is beating abnormally may not be present.”
“Atrial fibrillation comes with a few risks if left untreated. Having a stroke is one of the biggest results of AFib,” says Dr. Mondal. “Unfortunately, since most patients don’t feel their atrial fibrillation, they don’t realize they have it until they’ve had a stroke. Other risks are an increased likelihood of developing dementia and heart failure. About 10 to 15% of patients in my practice have heart failure because of AFib.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), other common risk factors for AFib include:
- Chronic kidney disease
- Diabetes
- High blood pressure
- Hyperthyroidism/hypothyroidism
- Ischemic heart disease, congestive heart failure
- Moderate to heavy alcohol or tobacco use
- Obesity and obstructive sleep apnea
The risk of AFib also increases with age, so it’s important that you stay up to date with routine AFib health screenings.
Ablation: What It Is and How It’s Performed
“The chaotic electrical signals that cause atrial fibrillation typically originate within the pulmonary veins, which drain into the upper left chamber of the heart,” says Dr. Mondal. “The ablation process uses energy, delivered through a catheter to trap and destroy the malfunctioning circuits around the pulmonary veins. This helps prevent faulty circuits from taking over the heart's natural rhythm and maintains a steady one. We float the catheter through the veins into the heart to perform this procedure.”
“There are currently three forms of energy used during ablation. There’s radiofrequency, which is heat, cryoablation, which is freezing, and there’s pulse field ablation, which uses large electrical fields to disrupt the cell membrane,” explains Dr. Mondal. "Once the procedure’s over, we conduct various testing to confirm that we’ve electrically isolated the pulmonary veins.”
Benefits and Candidacy for Ablation Procedures
One of the main benefits of ablation is that it’s a minimally invasive procedure. Unlike open-heart surgery, ablation procedures usually don’t require an extended stay at the hospital and are usually a same-day discharge.
“Ablation works more than twice as well as medications like antiarrhythmic drugs at keeping the heart in a normal rhythm. This steady rhythm improves the patients' quality of life, and most notice an improvement within one to two weeks after the procedure. Typically, symptoms like fatigue, shortness of breath and palpitations improve after the ablation,” says Dr. Mondal.
“Any patient with atrial fibrillation who’s showing symptoms can be considered a candidate for an ablation procedure,” says Dr. Mondal. “It’s important for patients to know that their candidacy for the procedure is tailored to their medical history and examination.”
The Effectiveness of Ablation to Treat AFib
It’s important to know that there are three stages of AFib. “The success of ablation in treating AFib depends on what stage the AFib is in when we perform ablation,” explains Dr. Mondal.
“The first stage is paroxysmal. In this stage, patients experience limited episodes and can contain them on their own,” says Dr. Mondal. “Then we have the persistent stage, which indicates their AFib symptoms have presented continuously for over a week. The final stage is long persistence, which means AFib symptoms have lasted for over a year.”
Like most diseases, there’s a higher chance of success when intervening in earlier stages. “The success rates in the paroxysmal stage of AFib are the highest, usually around 80%. The long-persistent stage has around a 60% success rate. Electrophysiologists are constantly balancing the risk-to-benefit ratio by tailoring their approach to each patient's atrial fibrillation,” says Dr. Mondal.
What Is the Recovery Time for Ablation?
“The recovery period for this procedure is short, and patients can typically walk and move around within a few hours after the procedure,” says Dr. Mondal. “A week after the procedure, patients can usually engage in heavy exertional activity like going to the gym.”
Expert Care for Matters of the Heart
From first to last, every heartbeat serves a purpose. So, when it comes to caring for this important muscle, you deserve the best. Our board-certified doctors and cardiology teams will work with you to create a treatment plan designed to help you return to the life you love, so you never miss a special moment.
Visit us here to learn more about our expert care for arrhythmias or schedule an appointment. It’s time to take a step toward a healthier heartbeat.
