Every year, nearly 450,000 people in the Netherlands suffer from a form of cardiac arrhythmia. In an ablation treatment, the doctor damages heart tissue at the site of the arrhythmia by heating or freezing. This creates scars that block the electrical stimuli that cause the disorder.
Disadvantages of current treatment
The ablation treatment takes place using catheters that are guided through the groin to the heart under X-ray guidance. However, frequent exposure to these X-rays can be harmful. Various technical innovations have recently made it possible to perform these treatments in the heart using an MRI scanner. Although an MRI scan is normally only used for diagnostics, it can now also be used for the actual treatment of the patient while it is in the scanner.
Benefits for the patient
An important advantage of this new technique (interventional cardiac MRI, or ‘iCMR’) is that the location of the heart muscle tissue to be treated is better visualized with MRI, so that the treatment can be carried out more accurately. In addition, an MRI scanner does not use harmful radiation, which benefits both the patient and the healthcare staff. Moreover, with this new technique, the heart muscle tissue can be re-mapped immediately after the scars have been applied.
World first
Although other centers have already performed ablation treatments in MRI scanners, Maastricht UMC+ goes one step further. The combination of advanced software and special catheters makes it possible to display the electrical signals from the catheters directly on the anatomical MRI images, thereby mapping the conduction of the electrical currents through the heart. This allows a 3D model of the heart to be made on which the location of the catheters can be followed ‘live’ in order to carry out the treatment even more accurately. The first ablation in an MRI scanner at Maastricht UMC+ took place in January 2021.
By: National Care Guide