Re: PVA with Dr. Natale

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Posted by Sarah on December 02, 2003 at 22:41:13:

In Reply to: Re: PVA with Dr. Natale posted by Rachel on December 01, 2003 at 14:57:16:

I'm not sure either, but it does happen that the Maze that's done now, is not the same Maze they did on Jack and Carl in the early years. Where Dr. Cox made all the scars by cutting through the heart muscle, and sewing them back up....CC now does a combination of cutting, to get into the atrium, and RF ablation that burns around the PV's, isolating them.

I think everyone...Maze or Ablation patients have Pulmonary Vein Isolations now, because that's where they decided the errant impulses were coming from that cause Afib.

Burning/RF is faster, and patient isn't on bypass machine, or arrested heart so long. However, you can't always tell whether you've gotten a good burn (through the full thickness)and there might be some heart muscle fibers left that the errant electrical impulse can "sneak" around. It's not difficult to do an ablation later, and it helps so much usually.

One interesting thing I observed in CC was that the open surgeons make a burn ring, encircling (sp?)all four PV at once..from the outside in. The RF, of course, are burning one "spots" one at a time, hopefully making a continuous line, that encircles the vein, one at a time, from the inside out!

Did that make any sense?
Sarah

Sarah

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