NCH’S Rooney Heart Institute completes clinical AFib trial

A big success for NCH as the health system continues its mission to become a world-class destination for care. The Rooney Heart Institute recently wrapped up a major clinical trial that looked at a new way to treat atrial fibrillation.

AFib is a common heart ailment that happens when the heart has an irregular beat, which impacts blood flow through its chambers. It can be a cause of heart failure and stroke. Some cases are treated with medications to prevent blood clots, but severe cases are problematic.

“The challenging part had been the patients who are in AFib all the time. Now, that’s called persistent AFib. Our success had been quite low in this patient population,” explained NCH electrophysiologist Dr. Dinesh Sharma.

He told WINK News health and medical reporter Amy Oshier that to help those patients, NCH enrolled in a major clinical trial. It studied a new way to treat persistent AFib. Currently, heat or cold ablation methods are used to destroy abnormal heart tissue. This trial looked at delivering doses of pulsed energy instead.

“The pulse field ablation is achieving the same goal, which is destroying the undesirable tissue or abnormal tissue in the heart. But instead of heat, it uses small electric shocks [and] localized shocks, which do not create any heat or cold. So, the benefit of that is it tends to be more selective to the heart. So we decrease the risk of any collateral damage.”

The study was a success in two ways. The pulse field ablation successfully treated patients without any adverse effects. It was also a success for NCH, which enrolled 52 participants- one of the highest of all the test sites.

“We were actually one of the top enrollers in the country, and in the publication, which was published in one of the top journals in the country called Nature Medicine. NCH Rooney Heart Institute is there.”

The FDA is reviewing pulse field ablation for this use. Because it’s an outpatient procedure and doesn’t impact the rest of the heart, using this energy option could be the wave of the future and a launch point for NCH on the world research stage.