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There are medications, procedures to correct irregular heartbeats; but what if those don`t work?
There are medications, procedures to correct irregular heartbeats; but what if those don`t work?
MILWAUKEE -- More than five million Americans suffer from irregular heartbeats -- specifically caused by a condition called atrial fibrillation. Without treatment, it can be deadly. Medications and simple procedures usually correct the problem -- but what if those don't work?
"I would run four miles on a Monday and be fine," Steve Lange said.
Steve Lange
Four miles on the track was nothing for Lange. He felt great. He wasn't out of breath. He wasn't tired. But yet, something was off.
Steve Lange
"I just felt like I had butterflies, but they were in my chest," Lange said.
That feeling in his chest turned out to be atrial fibrillation -- commonly known as AFib. It is a condition where the heart's chambers beat out of rhythm. Those who have it are at a five times greater risk of stroke.
Lange tried medications and two common heart procedures to correct his AFib, but years later, the irregularity returned, and it eventually got worse.
"To me, just getting up and going out to the car was like, if I could sit here, I would just do that. I had no energy -- none at all," Lange said.
Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center
When those options failed, he turned to Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center, where Dr. David Kress and Dr. Jasbir Sra have developed a breakthrough treatment for those with recurrent AFib.
"When somebody fails two procedures and fails medications, there`s a reason for that. The reason is there is probably a lot of areas which are causing trouble," Dr. Sra said.
Dr. David Kress and Dr. Jasbir Sra
Their approach is called the "hybrid ablation technique." It combines two treatments -- catheter-based care and minimally invasive surgery into a single procedure.
Here's how it works:
Dr. Kress, a cardiac surgeon, creates a small incision in the chest and ablates, or creates scar tissue outside the heart.
Dr. Sra, an electrophysiologist, then uses a catheter and 3D mapping to ablate from inside the heart -- allowing them to cover more areas of the heart and block the pathways causing the irregular heartbeat.
"What we do is we keep the areas that are causing the AFib isolated electrically from the rest of the atrium," Dr. Kress said.
All of this takes place in one operating room, in one day.
"In fact, the hybrid procedure is really a way to make catheter ablation more effective and safer and easier on patients," Dr. Kress said.
More than 150 patients have undergone the hybrid procedure, with 85 percent of them free from AFib within a year. That includes Steve Lange.
"I feel great. I just feel more energetic," Lange said.
Six months later, Lange's step, heart and life were back in rhythm.
"Basically, they gave me my life back," Lange said.
Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center is the only hospital in Wisconsin -- and one of only a few in the nation to offer this specific procedure to patients.