Cleveland Clinic London Broadens Offering for Atrial Fibrillation Treatment

Cleveland Clinic London is now one of the few private hospitals in the UK to provide the full suite of treatments for Atrial Fibrillation (AF) by adding Pulsed-Field Ablation (PFA). This adds to the hospital’s existing treatment for the condition and gives patients more choice over their treatment for AF (irregular heart rhythm).

A quick procedure, Cleveland Clinic London is now providing all available tools for ablation to patients for catheter heart ablation using radiofrequency energy, cryoablation and now PFA.

PFA is a minimally invasive technique to treat atrial fibrillation (AF) and an alternative to traditional thermal ablation methods. During a traditional ablation procedure, a catheter is guided to the interior of the heart and extreme temperatures (heat or cold) destroy areas associated with abnormal heart rhythms. This can lead to injury of surrounding structures. PFA relies on tissue-selective, non-thermal electric fields to ablate heart tissue avoiding such injury.

Atrial Fibrillation affects 1.4 million people in the UK, according to the NHS.

This treatment is recommended for patients who have symptomatic AF that has not responded well to medication; are seeking a minimally invasive treatment option with potentially fewer complications; and are looking for a procedure that offers short recovery times and high procedural success rates.

Details of the PFA technique, along with an overview of preclinical and clinical trial evidence, were recently explored in a State-of-the-Art Review in JACC Clinical Electrophysiology (2023;9[9]:2008-2023) by a Cleveland Clinic author team led by Oussama Wazni, MD, MBA, Section Head of Cardiac Electrophysiology and Pacing at Cleveland Clinic.

Professor Aldo Rinaldi, Consultant Cardiologist at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals and Service lead for Electrophysiology at Cleveland Clinic London, said: ‘The introduction of PFA at Cleveland Clinic London is an important step forward in the treatment of patients with complex cardiac arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation. This important technology has demonstrated impressive results for patients with atrial fibrillation and may avoid the potential damage associated with traditional thermal energy techniques to important extra-cardiac structures. Cleveland Clinic London is proud to be able to offer our patients this exciting new technology’.