People with irregular heart rhythms face a number of health concerns including frequent fainting, which can be debilitating.
A cardiologist at Akron Children’s Hospital is now performing a procedure called cardioneuroablation to correct abnormally slow heart rhythms. It is one of about 20 hospitals in the U.S. that now does the as-yet non-FDA-approved procedure, the hospital said.
The hospital has performed the non-invasive heart procedure on 15 patients in three years, including six children, who before had little hope of controlling their irregular heartbeat, said Dr. John Clark, the director of Akron Children's Pediatric Arrhythmia Center.
A majority, 80%, of his patients no longer pass out after the cardioneuroablation, he said.
“The ones that come to me, they're at the end of their rope and are just desperate to find some way to ‘let me live a normal life without passing out,'" Clark said. "I never dreamed we'd be able to fix it, and I am just overjoyed at the possibility of, wow, we can we can really offer them hope.”
Hannah Grabble, 28, of Canton, said her life was transformed after Clark made tiny scars on her heart tissue, which blocked abnormal electrical signals, allowing normalization of the heart rhythm.
“It has been... the biggest thing that has turned the tide in my favor for actually living my life," she said. "I'm not passing out multiple times a day. I am able to go up and down the stairs.”
Grabble said she no longer has to worry about her children finding her passed out and can now move around her home freely.
Clark said he’s made several trips to Brazil to learn how to perform the experimental procedure — similar to a procedure normally used to treat people with fast heartbeats — from a doctor there who discovered it.
Akron Children’s is likely the only hospital in the world to perform cardiac ablations on children, as the hospital uses a technique that eliminates radiation exposure, Clark said.
