Bipolar and alcohol ablation

I wonder how effective this procedure will be?

by Gemita - 2024-05-29 16:58:41

Debs, you seem to be on your own with this one although I know I gave you a few links and the name of one member who has had an alcohol ablation procedure last time you posted about this. 

An Alcohol septal ablation is a minimally invasive heart procedure to treat hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) which causes a portion of your heart muscle to thicken and stiffen. It affects the septum, or wall, that separates two of your heart’s chambers. When the wall gets too thick and stiff, your blood can’t flow from your heart to the rest of your body like it should. Decreased blood flow causes symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue and can trigger unwanted heart rhythm disturbances.

Alcohol septal ablation restores normal blood flow by damaging and shrinking the thickened tissue. The procedure doesn’t harm normal tissue. 

I wonder how this procedure specifically helps with PVCs, although by restoring normal blood flow, I would imagine all abnormal rhythms would ease.  I see Bipolar ablation can be freely combined with other ablation methods like alcohol ablation.

I attach a link below in case it helps.  It should be copied and pasted into your browser to open.

Debs, how many Bipolar/alcohol ablations has your EP done?  I hope if you have this procedure it will help control the PVCs.  I shall be interested to hear how things go.  Please take care and report back whenever you can

https://www.cardiacep.theclinics.com/article/S1877-9182(22)00060-0/fulltext

Bipolar or alcohol ablation

by AgentX86 - 2024-05-31 00:00:37

Apparently the bipolar ablation scar goes deeper into the muscle than a unipolar ablation, so the isolation is better.  It appears to be relatively new, so I'd certainly want to find someone who does it regularly.  Since they're looking for the equipment, I'd be a little wary.

Alcohol ablation is a bit more interesting.  It seems similar to a CRT LV lead installation, except for a catheter that they can use to inject alcohol into a vein to kill the tissue around the guilty tissue.  As the alcohol dissipates in the blood going away from the injection site, it kills cells until it's diItuted below a threshold.  It then become harmless, so the size of the scar tissue can be controlled by the amount of alcohol used and the expected dilution. It sounds tricky because it is so similar to fishing a CRT lead (both go through the coronary sinus).  Some have a physiology that makes this really hard.  Again, I'd want a specialist for this.

Keep us up to date.  This is a bit unusual for me (us?) and really interesting.

Bipolar or Alcohol ablation

by Debs59 - 2024-06-12 01:04:08

I'm going to go though with this. My EP is good I feel, but he has only done 8-10 of these procedures.  They are 95% effective.  I feel like he has already been in there from my first ablation so he knows the territory.  This procedure is not done alot, that I do know.  My EP is suppose to be the new upcoming Doctor for these procedures.  My cardiologist highly recommends him.  I'm going for it and I sure hope it helps calm down the PVCs...wish me luck...June 26 7:00 AM and I will be staying in the hospital for a couple of days.

Thank you so much for all the information too!!!

Update to alcohol ablation

by Debs59 - 2024-08-09 16:36:50

Ok...here we go again!  My

alcohol ablation that was performed for my extra PVCs, help with my EF and CRTD to work better was once again partially successful.  The doc tried his best to get rid of the alpha PVC that causes all the problems BUT it did not work.  I stayed in hospital for two days and am now on Amiodarone 200, after the boost in the hospital.  Just saw my EP that performed the alcohol ablation and he wants me to travel to Houston, we live in Dallas to seek help from the main Doc that performs a lot of these, in fact he is the pioneer who trains EPs on the procedure.  I have an appt in Sept.  I just want my heart fixed.  I will say my extra beats went from over 660 to 4.6 an hour and my pacer is back to pacing at 94% which is good.  He doesn't want me on Amiodarone for a long time because of the major side effects.  What do you think?  Who is on Amiodarone long term and do you have any side effects?  Thanks for the info and the vent!