Bipolar ablation for the treatment of arrhythmias
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Bipolar catheter ablation for the treatment of ventricular arrhythmias
IRAS ID
206926
Contact name
Magdi Saba
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
St. George's University of London
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Ventricular arrhythmias comprise a group of cardiac rhythm disorders that range from frequent single extra beats known as ventricular ectopics (VE) to sustained rhythms known as ventricular tachycardia (VT). These disorders present with symptoms ranging from palpitations to cardiac arrest. In high risk patients, defibrillators are implanted (ICDs), which deliver lifesaving therapy in the form of shocks. Despite their efficacy in treating these rhythms when they occur, they are not able to prevent them from starting and so many patients suffer from recurrent painful shocks throughout their life time. Drugs to treat these disorders are only modestly effective and many patients need to discontinue them due to serious side effects.
Ablation has emerged as an effective therapy where by ablation attempts to break the focus or circuits which are necessary to sustain VT or VE by cauterizing areas of the heart using the tip of a single small catheter introduced into the blood vessels via the groin. There are, however, a small group of patients where the focus of these rhythms prevents effective treatment by catheter ablation due to their deep origin within the heart muscle. With the current limitations in catheter technology, these patients require either multiple procedures to achieve a satisfactory outcome, open heart surgery or heart transplantation in rare cases.
We propose to use a method whereby ablation is performed across the tips of 2 catheters placed either side of the section of heart muscle where the focus of the arrhythmia resides. Performing ablation in this manner enables deeper ablation lesions to reach areas that would otherwise be inaccessible to ablation lesions created by current catheter ablation techniques. This would use existing catheters with a custom built ablation generator to deliver ablation from two catheters instead of one.REC name
London - Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/1670
Date of REC Opinion
6 Dec 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion