The Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute recently completed the nation’s first case using new cardiac mapping technology to treat abnormal heart rhythms – commonly known as arrhythmias.
The technology reduces the likelihood of a patient returning to the cath lab for additional procedures to treat abnormal heart rhythms, officials said.
For this first case doctors employed the new St. Jude Medical’s EnSite Precision system, approved by the Food and Drug Administration for commercial use last December.
The EnSite Precision mapping technology makes it possible for physicians to map the structure and electrical currents of the heart to more precisely treat the areas where so-called “rogue electrical currents” are occurring and creating an abnormal heartbeat.
“We can’t treat what we aren’t able to see,” John Day, MD, medical director of the Intermountain Heart Rhythm Specialists at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute, said in a statement.
Day explained that the heart mapping technology allows better three-dimensional pictures of the arrhythmias in the heart, which improve the accuracy of what doctors see during the procedure, which leads to more precise treatment.
The new technology results in patients requiring less care and achieving quicker cardiac rehabilitation, according to Intermountain doctors. Moreover, the technology helps reduce the likelihood of repeat visits to the cath lab, which in turn reduces the cost of care.
