New AFib procedure that reduces risk for patients

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) – September is Atrial Fibrillation Awareness Month. Atrial fibrillation, also called AFib, is when a heart beats irregularly.

Research shows that AFib greatly increases the risk of stroke and other related heart problems.

Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast electrophysiologist Dr. Adam Bainey said he’s seen more and more young people coming in with AFib. He said that just because more young people are being diagnosed and treated for AFib, that doesn’t necessarily mean more people are developing it, but rather that advances in technology are revealing that this may have always been the case.

“Technology has come a long way and that’s why we’re getting a lot of heart stuff back earlier, like Apple watches, being one of the big things,” Dr Bainey said. “And that means A-Fib in a lot of younger and younger people compared to 20 years ago, nobody had a smart watch on their wrist that said, ‘Hey, you’re irregular, you might want to see the doctor.”

As the technology to identify these health problems advances, so does the technology to treat them. Dr. Bailey said in June, the hospital implemented a new form of AFib treatment: pulsed-field ablation.

“When we were doing atrial fibrillation ablations, it was a thermal ablation,” he explained. “You either freeze the tissue or you burn it. The problem with this is that you can actually damage all the tissue around it. The beauty of pulsed field (the new procedure) is that it is very selective in that it will only affect cardiac tissue. It won’t affect your food pipe, it won’t affect your lungs. Just the tissue of the heart that we’re actually trying to express.”

Dr. Bailey added that since the new procedure was implemented, it has been done on nearly 100 patients. He said the overall procedure and recovery time is significantly less and that his patients have had positive feedback.

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