Women left the treatment to get a heart beat back in rhythm
A new study has revealed significant gender gap for the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF), a common heart rhythm disorder, which, according to forecasts, will increase by 60 percent over the next 15 years and dramatically increases the risk of stroke and death.
Research headed Professor Peter KistlerThe head of clinical electrophysiology at the Baker Institute and Alfred hospital, and his graduate student Dr. Hari Sugumar showed that a potential cure for AF — known as catheter ablation — it is much less effective for women than men.
“Although AF is more common in men, women constitute a large proportion of people with ‘persistent’ AF, those who experience prolonged symptoms despite treatment or other treatments,” said Professor Kistler.
“A woman’s life is in danger, and we must do better to treat them. There is not a new product developed for the AF for more than 30 years. Most research and development went into catheter ablation. But the success of these procedures sits about 60 to 70 percent, and our research shows that figure is even lower for women with persistent AF.”
People with AF have a three times increased risk of heart failure and five times more likely to suffer from stroke than those without AF.
Research Professor Kistler at published recently in the journal heart rhythm looked at 281 patients — 30% of women and 70% men who received more than one procedure is cardiac ablation to treat AF.
He found that while 57 percent of men in the group were free from atrial fibrillation at subsequent, only 38 percent of women.
The data also showed that pulmonary vein reconnection is a key marker in the treatment — were much less likely in women, and the number of the connected pulmonary veins were significantly smaller in women than in men.
“We need to shift our priorities with a focus on AF as a predominantly male condition, to examine gender differences in mechanisms and gap treatment,” said Professor Kistler.
Professor Kistler just got the funding from Department of cardiometabolic health Bakerrecently established Medical school in Melbourne to support trials of new treatments for ablation and check to see if it can generate the best results.
Cardiac ablation works by scarring or destroying tissue in the heart that triggers or supports abnormal heart rhythm. It is typically used to help people with arrhythmias when the medication is not working as it should be or produce negative side effects.
“We want to improve the success of this procedure and developed a new method that aims to a large area in the left center of the atrium. This is a more laborious procedure, but we hope to show that it could produce more successful for patients,” said Professor Kistler.
In CAPLA randomized controlled trial will monitor approximately 400 patients with AF, half of which receive regular ablation procedure, the other half who get what the team of Professor Kistler offers a new gold standard. Then participants are provided with the latest technology mobile ECG, so that researchers can intensively monitor the heart rhythm for several months after the procedure.
The trial will be conducted at the international level, in five different places in the state of Victoria, and sites in Canberra, Adelaide, the UK and Canada over the next two years.
Professor Kistler said there were huge advantages in the management of judicial process within the framework of the new partnership between the Baker Institute and the University of Melbourne.
“This is a multidisciplinary oriented research, and look at the results in a wide demographic requires broad group of patients and professionals around the world,” he said.