Every year, nearly 450,000 people in the Netherlands suffer from some form of cardiac arrhythmia. In an ablation treatment, your doctor damages the heart tissue at the site of the arrhythmia by heating or freezing it. This creates scars that block the electrical stimuli causing the ailment.
Disadvantages of current treatment
Ablation treatment is done using catheters that are guided through the groin to the heart under the guidance of X-rays. However, frequent exposure to these X-rays can be harmful. Several technical innovations have recently made it possible to perform these treatments in the heart using an MRI scanner. While an MRI scan is normally only used for diagnostics, it can now also be used for actual patient treatment while in the scanner.
Benefits for the patient
An important advantage of this new technique (interventional cardiac MRI, or ‘iCMR’) is that the location of the heart muscle tissue to be treated is better visualized with the MRI, so that treatment can be performed more accurately. Additionally, an MRI scanner uses no harmful radiation, which benefits both the patient and the healthcare professional. Furthermore, with this new technique, the heart muscle tissue can be re-mapped immediately after the scars are applied.
World premiere
While other centers have already performed MRI scanner ablation treatments, Maastricht UMC+ goes one step further. The combination of advanced software and special catheters allows you to visualize the electrical signals from the catheters directly on MRI anatomical images, thus mapping the conduction of electrical currents through the heart. This makes it possible to create a 3D model of the heart on which it is possible to follow the position of the catheters ‘live’ to perform the treatment even more accurately. The first ablation in an MRI scanner at UMC+ in Maastricht took place in January 2021.
By: National Care Guide
