Microwave and Laser energies for percutaneous cardiac ablation for the cure of arhythmias

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/163609

Funding Status
Closed

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Funded Activity Summary

The commonest beating disorder of the heart is atrial fibrillation (AF). Whilst it can occur at any age it is more common in the elderly with 12% Australians over 70 y.o having it. AF is the cause of a third of all strokes and increases the risk of dying from any heart disease. Ventricular tachycardia (VT) is the commonest cause of death in the year after a heart attack. Currently these beating disorders are in most cases incurable and respond poorly to medications. We have developed an operation for AF which is done by open heart surgery. It has been successful at curing some patients who suffer from AF and uses radiofrequency energy. The difficulty of radiofrequency energy is that it is not suitable in a large number of cases for this operation. We are developing Laser and Microwave catheters as alternatives to RF so that the success of the operation can be improved. These new microwave and laser catheters are being designed and tested to be used primarily in a minimally invasive procedure. They would be inserted via the veins with the patient under sedation. This would allow patients to go home sooner and have a recovery period of only a few days. As well as their application in the top chamber of the heart (atrium) for AF, these new energies will be adapted for minimally invasive operations in the ventricle (lower chamber) of the heart for the treatment of ventricular tachycardia. By developing a technique such as this, cure of AFand VT will be available to many more people, helping reduce the strokes, heart failure and premature deaths from these two heart conditions.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2001

End Date: 01-01-2003

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $331,527.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Instruments And Techniques

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

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Other Keywords

Arrhythmia treatment | Atrial Fibrillation | Atrial Flutter | Cardiac ablation monitoring | Cerebral embolism | Heart ablation | Laser cardiac ablation | Microwave cardiac ablation | Sudden cardiac death | Ventricular Tachycardia

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