Arctic Front Cryoballoon

Hello Everyone,
Is anyone familiar with an ablation procedure using an Arctic Front Cryoballoon? My doctor informed me that I'm still having afib--The Flecainide medicine is not controlling the problem and baby aspirin is not keeping the blood thin enough (I was on Eliquis until March when I had a subdural hemotoma).
What is the recovery time? Is the procedure risky? How long is the hospital stay?
I'd really appreciate any info. you may have. I'm getting really tired of all the procedures I've had (gone through 3 pacemaker surgeries!!).

Thanks, Jane

1 Comments

Afib ablation

by golden_snitch - 2015-08-12 07:08:30

Hi, Jane!

It's a heart cath procedure with probably one overnight stay. Recovery should be quick, just a matter of days - but we're all different. Ablations for Afib are done in the left atrium, around the pulmonary veins (therefore called "pulmonary vein isolations"), so they have to go through the atrial septum (the wall between left and right atrium) to get into the left atrium. Cryo means that, instead of using heat (radiofrequency power), they will freeze heart cells to create kind of a ring of scar tissue around the pulmonary veins. Afib is usually caused by some cells in the pulmonary veins firing electrical impulses like crazy, and by creating that scar tissue around the veins, these impulses are blocked from making the atria go into atrial fibrillation.

There's some really good information at:
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/services/heart/services/arrhythmia-treatment/pulmonary-vein-isolation-ablation

What you should be aware of is that Afib ablations are only successfull in roughly about 40%-60% of all patients at first attempt. Many patients need a second or even third procedure in order to see an improvement. So, you should be prepared for that.

Good luck!

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