Catheter ablation of cardiac arrhythmias: usually cure, but complications may occur.

In cardiology, our ability to cure is rare. When cardiac disease is diagnosed, most of our treatments are palliative. They may remove or diminish complaints and prolong life but usually will not be able to stop the disease process. Cure is possible, however, in the patient suffering from a tachycardia in an otherwise normal heart. In that patient, we can locate the site of abnormal impulse formation or a critical part of the tachycardia pathway by cardiac activation mapping during the arrhythmia. Through the same or another catheter, radiofrequency (RF) energy can be applied to that area, resulting in destruction of a few millimeters of critical tissue and cure of the patient. That technique has been with us now for a decade. During that decade, RF energy applied through a catheter has been shown to be very effective in different types of supraventricular tachycardia.