Treating AFib: What you need to know about this common heart condition

Nurse practitioner Caitlin Massey from Ascension St. John Medical Center explains the symptoms, risks and new treatment options for atrial fibrillation, a common but serious heart rhythm disorder.

What is AFib?

“Atrial fibrillation is a rhythm of rapid, disorganized electrical activity, and it comes from the top chambers of the heart. Usually it causes someone's heart to race. The risks with this rhythm are that it causes blood clots in the heart and can put you at risk for having a stroke.”

How is it typically treated?

“So we often put patients on blood thinners, and then other ways that we treat it are with procedures called ablation procedures. And an ablation procedure is where we go in through the groins with catheters into the heart, and usually we either burn or freeze the tissue in order to try to prevent this rhythm from happening.”

What is the new treatment option?

“We have a new modality available to us now that's not burning or freezing. It's called PFA, or pulsed field ablation, and it's where we basically have pulsed electrical activity instead of burning or freezing. And in doing that procedure, it basically alters the cell membranes of the cardiac tissue and tries to accomplish the same goal of preventing the atrial fibrillation.”

What symptoms should people watch for?

“When someone has atrial fibrillation, there is a slew of symptoms. Everybody's different. That's the first thing. Some people have no symptoms, but things to look out for are shortness of breath with activity especially. I'll have people say, you know, I used to be able to walk to the mailbox without needing to catch my breath and now I have to stop three times. Some people can feel their heart racing. Some people get dizzy or lightheaded. Some people often will have chest pain. So those are just the main symptoms to look out for.”

Is this a one-time fix or will follow-up care be needed?

“So, usually we continue to follow with a cardiologist or an electrophysiologist after this procedure. So, the thing with atrial fibrillation is that there's no cure. There's treatment options, and our goal with these treatment options is to reduce the amount of AFib someone has. Sometimes that's none. Sometimes it's just less than what they were having before. So, we always encourage continue regular follow-up after these procedures in order to ensure that they're not having any more issues or problems.”

What are the benefits of this new PFA treatment?

“It is. So the ablation is an outpatient procedure. You know, like I said, we do different modalities. So there's burning, freezing, and then this new pulse electric, pulse field. And basically, the new one is a little less invasive, so it's got lower risks. It's also typically a lot faster, so procedure time, as far as time on the table, is reduced with this type of new modality that we're using.”