Cardiac arrhythmias are very life-threatening heart events, but unfortunately not many treatment options are available. For the past couple of years, the administration of an electrical shock has been utilized as the treatment for most cardiac arrhythmias. This method is often painful and very traumatic indeed.
This may not be the treatment option for the next couple of years, as a new study by a high-caliber team of international scientific experts suggests a newer and more effective technique of treating cardiac arrhythmias. Alain Pumir, a CNRS researcher from the ENS Lyon physics laboratory, along with his team of researchers, has proven that their improved administration of weaker impulses can positively restore the heart rhythm in atrial fibrillation.
This newfound technique, however, was only tested on animals with atrial fibrillation. Although no clinical trials on human subjects have been undertaken just yet, the initial results on the tested animals are promising enough to suggest the practice of better and painless defibrillation measures in the future.
Atrial fibrillation is actually the most common case of cardiac arrhythmias, afflicting more than 10 million patients in the United States and Europe. This condition is characterized by an irregular action of cardiac cells in the heart muscles, resulting in erratic electric impulses that take place in the heart. Such irregularities in the rhythm prevent normal heart contractions, ultimately affecting blood circulation to all other organs in the human body. Medication alone cannot minimize or prevent the effects of atrial fibrillation, nor can it restore the rhythm of the heart to its normal state.
The all-time proven method of alleviating cardiac arrhythmias is through defibrillation, which necessitates the application of a high-amplitude electrical current to the heart to directly reestablish the normal heart rhythm. This method, despite being brief, is quite painful.
The researchers utilized a high electric field to create ways along the heart tissues, specifically through the arteries. When these waves are cut off, they observed that cardiac rhythm is restored. They hypothesized that a weaker electrical impulse need not be repeated, as the results were quite positive when tested on animals. This new technique is called Low-Energy Anti-fibrillation Pacing (LEAP).
These results of the experiment were published in Nature.
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