For some of the patients with severe cardiac arrhythmias (ventricular tachycardia, VT), current treatments, such as medications or ablation, offer no solution. Researchers from Maastricht UMC+ and Maastro, in collaboration with 30 partner organizations in 8 European countries, will therefore conduct research into a new treatment method: non-invasive radioablation. The MUMC+ reports it.
In VT, the patient has an abnormally fast heart rhythm that originates in one of the chambers of the heart. It usually occurs in individuals with pre-existing heart disease, but can also be inherited and seen in individuals with a congenital heart defect. The VT can last for a few heartbeats or it can be present for a longer period of time which is life-threatening for the patient.
Ablation doesn’t work
Patients with VT, in whom medications don’t work enough, are usually considered first for so-called catheter ablation. With a special catheter, doctors heat the piece of heart tissue that causes heart arrhythmias. As a result, the arrhythmia is, as it were, turned off. In some patients, however, catheter ablation does not help, for example because the catheter cannot reach the piece of heart tissue.
STAR treatment
Since 2021, the research consortium has been studying the treatment of VT using non-invasive radiotherapy (STereotactic Arrhythmia Radioablation or STAR). Similar radiation therapy has been used for more than 10 years to treat lung cancer. Over the next few years, the researchers will study whether this irradiation for VT is safe and feasible. Cardiologists at UMC+ Maastricht are conducting careful research into the exact place where arrhythmias originate. Maastro doctors and researchers are responsible, among other things, for the correct application of radiotherapy and for observing the influence of movement on dose distribution, for example through respiration and heart rate.
By: National Care Guide
