OKLAHOMA CITY (Ivanhoe Broadcast News)
-- Ryan Moore was playing baseball when he first felt his heart
racing. "It felt like it was gonna' jump out of my chest," he
says.
Moore had Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome, a condition that made his heart beat at dangerously high levels. He needed a procedure called cardiac ablation to destroy the tiny fibers that cause the arrhythmia. Doctors place catheters in the heart to locate the abnormal tissue and deliver a shock. But Moore's abnormality was deep within his heart, so doctors couldn't get to it with the standard approach.
Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiologist Warren Jackman, M.D., used technology similar to a GPS device to map Moore's heart and see exactly where the catheters needed to go.
"In a sense it's locating the position
in space similar to how GPS works. Instead of taking the signals
from a satellite, it took the signals from under the table," Dr.
Jackman, of the Oklahoma University Medical Center in Oklahoma
City, tells Ivanhoe.
A robot guided the catheter on its own and corrected the exact problem spot that appeared on the map. It was the first automatic mapping of the heart. The result for Moore's family was nothing short of a miracle.
Dr. Jackman says the new technique could be used to correct just about any type of arrhythmia in the future -- making the procedures more precise and safer. "It should allow all physicians to get access to all of the areas," he says.
He says the automated procedure is
safer because the catheter stops when it touches the heart. It's
harder for a physician to do that with his own hands. The new
procedure allows for a more complete mapping of the heart.
Two weeks after his procedure, Moore is back to playing ball -- racking up stats on the field and making history with a promising technology.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
If you would like more information, please contact:
Judy Austin
Office of Warren Jackman, M.D.
University of Oklahoma Health Science Center
(405) 271-9696 ext. 37537
