SUPRAVENTRICULAR TACHYCARDIA |
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An arrhythmia is an irregular heartbeat, a condition that affects more than 10 million people worldwide. The irregularity can be a heartbeat that is too fast (supraventricular tachycardia) or too slow (bradycardia), but it is caused by a change or interruption in the heart's normal reception and distribution of electrical impulses. |
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The standard treatment for supraventricular tachycardia, as with most arrhythmias, is to use heat to ablate the defective pathways in the heart that cause an abnormal electrical impulse. Because of the position of the problem – supraventricular, meaning in the upper chambers of the heart – doctors were concerned about a complication that happens in about 1% of cases. The complication is that the heat-based therapy may cauterize more tissue than the physician may have intended. When this happens, the patient must have a permanent pacemaker implanted for life. |
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| ca-science.com / maze procedure / SUPRAVENTRICULAR TACHYCARDIA | ||