WESTON, Fla. – According to the CDC, a condition called atrial fibrillation, where the heart falls into an abnormal rhythm, contributes to 158,000deaths every year in the U.S.
Now there’s a new approach to treating this condition that poses less risk to patients.
Thirty-two year old Jordan Malik is among a growing number of young Americans being diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart beat that typically affects people over the age of 60.
He was just 29 when it sent him to the emergency room where he also learned he was in heart failure.
“So it was like everything got real all of a sudden you know,” Malik said.
Dr. Yasser Rodriguez, an electrophysiologist with Cleveland Clinic Weston said A-Fib is commonly treated with an ablation.
The procedure involves imaging with fluoroscopy, or X-rays, but that can expose other areas of the body to potentially harmful radiation.
“So on average with the traditional accepted approach i mean we’re looking at 43 minutes or north of exposure to the patient so that’s the equivalent of essentially if a person received 150 chest x-rays in one sitting,” Rodriguez said.
He said that can increase the risk of breast, lung, skin and even bone marrow cancers especially in younger patients like Malik who made need additional ablations down the road.
Rodriguez is now working with what he says is a safer, more effective way to perform cardiac ablations for a-fib through a technique called ‘zero fluoroscopy’ ablation.
“With the advent of this new technology it’s really allowed us to move away from x-ray so it’s really increased the safety profile of the procedure, it’s become a lot more accessible and it also, traditionally this ablation was a two-day hospital stay and now we do it same day outpatient,” Rodriguez said.
Post procedure, Malik is back in action at his local Jujitsu studio.
“Overall I feel pretty good, I’m able to do everything I want which is great,” he said.
The prevalence of arrhythmia’s, such as atrial fibrillation, has increased three-fold in the last 50 years.
It is predicted that 6 to 16 million individuals will develop A-Fib by the year 2050.