First study of heart 'maps' for kids could help correct rapid rhythms
American Heart Association meeting report: BCVS-12 Abstract 25
2012-07-24
(Press-News.org) The first study of a procedure to make three-dimensional "maps" of electrical signals in children's hearts could help cardiologists correct rapid heart rhythms in young patients, according to new research presented at the American Heart Association's Basic Cardiovascular Sciences 2012 Scientific Sessions.
Children with the condition atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia, or AVNRT, suffer from disruptions in the heart's electrical system that cause sudden rapid heart rates. Patients have been successfully treated with cardiac ablation , in which the abnormal tissue that causes the condition is destroyed by freezing (cryoablation).
It can be a difficult procedure because every patient may have a different area of abnormal tissue causing the arrhythmia, so low-voltage mapping is used to create a profile of high- and low-voltage areas of tissue to guide ablation. However, no research has been done on children until now.
"This is the first study to look at this technique in pediatric patients," said Lindsey Malloy, D.O., lead researcher and a cardiology fellow and researcher at University of Iowa Children's Hospital in Iowa City. "It has the potential to improve ablation success rates."
Malloy and her colleagues created three-dimensional voltage maps of the right atrium (upper chamber of the heart), using electrical recordings from inside the heart. They also identified a bridge of low voltage signals surrounded by even lower voltage tissue, a "saddle", or voltage bridge indicating where there was reduced electrical activity.
Twenty-nine patients between the ages of 7 and 20 were included in the study.
Physicians performed guided cryoablation of the abnormal electrical pathway using the bridge identified by voltage mapping. In 25 of 29 patients, there was an adequate voltage bridge to allow guided ablation, while the successful ablation site was within the first three lesions in 15 out of 25 patients.
"This use of voltage-guided mapping of this voltage bridge in AVNRT appears to be both safe and very effective in children while providing for more precise electrically guided ablation," Malloy said.
INFORMATION:
Co-authors are Ian Law, M.D., and Nicholas Von Bergen, M.D., University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, Iowa City, Iowa. Author disclosures can be found on the abstract. This study did not receive external funding.
Learn more about Heart Rhythm Disorders in Children and Congenital Heart Disease .
Additional multimedia resources available on left side of link:
http://newsroom.heart.org/pr/aha/_prv-first-study-of-heart-maps-for-236629.aspx
For the latest heart news, follow us on twitter @HeartNews
Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at www.heart.org/corporatefunding .
Note: Actual presentation is Monday, July 23, 2012, 6:30 p.m. CT/ 7:30 p.m. ET.
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2012-07-24
Damaged and aged heart tissue of older heart failure patients was rejuvenated by stem cells modified by scientists, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Basic Cardiovascular Sciences 2012 Scientific Sessions.
The study is simultaneously published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The research could one day lead to new treatments for heart failure patients, researchers said.
"Since patients with heart failure are normally elderly, their cardiac stem cells aren't very healthy," said Sadia Mohsin, Ph.D., one of the ...
2012-07-24
Infants are able to detect how speech communicates unobservable intentions, researchers at New York University and McGill University have found in a study that sheds new light on how early in life we can rely on language to acquire knowledge about matters that go beyond first-hand experiences.
Their findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
"Much of what we know about the world does not come from our own experiences, so we have to obtain this information indirectly—from books, the news media, and conversation," explained Athena Vouloumanos, ...
2012-07-24
Using a newly developed analytical technique, a team led by scientists at USC was the first to identify long-hypothesized vitamin B deficient zones in the ocean.
"This is another twist to what limits life in the ocean," said Sergio Sañudo-Wilhelmy, professor of biological and earth sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and lead author on a paper about the vitamin-depleted zones that will appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on July 23.
B vitamins are organic compounds dissolved in the ocean and are important for living ...
2012-07-24
Study results released today by the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) show disturbing rates of new HIV infections occurring among black gay and bisexual men in the U.S. (also known as men who have sex with men, or MSM), particularly young black MSM. The HPTN 061 study showed that the overall rate of new HIV infection among black MSM in this study was 2.8% per year, a rate that is nearly 50% higher than in white MSM in the U.S. Even more alarming, HPTN 061 found that young black MSM—those 30 years of age and younger—acquired HIV infection at a rate of 5.9% per year, ...
2012-07-24
The impact of deforestation on loss of biodiversity is undeniable. Madagascar, a biodiversity hotspot for its richness of endemic species, has been especially hard hit by deforestation and subsequent destruction of natural habitats, caused mainly, it is thought, by human pauperisation, economic activities and population growth. A recent study, by an international research group led by Lounès Chickhi, group leader at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (Portugal) and CNRS researcher (in Toulouse, France), questions the prevailing account that degradation of tropical ecosystems ...
2012-07-24
Increasing dietary intake of the antioxidant vitamins C, E, and selenium could help cut the risk of developing pancreatic cancer by up to two thirds, suggests research published online in the journal Gut.
If the association turns out to be causal, one in 12 of these cancers might be prevented, suggest the researchers, who are leading the Norfolk arm of the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC) study.
Cancer of the pancreas kills more than a quarter of a million people every year around the world. And 7500 people are diagnosed with the disease every year ...
2012-07-24
Two out of three severely obese kids already have at least one risk factor for heart disease, suggests research published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
The prevalence and severity of childhood obesity has been rising worldwide, but little research has been carried out on the underlying health problems that children with severe weight problems have, say the authors.
They base their findings on data supplied by paediatricians to the Dutch Paediatric Surveillance Unit between 2005 and 2007.
During this period, doctors treating all new cases of severe obesity ...
2012-07-24
(Boston, Mass.)—Severe psychological and physical neglect produces measurable changes in children's brains, finds a study led by Boston Children's Hospital. But the study also suggests that positive interventions can partially reverse these changes.
Researchers led by Margaret Sheridan, PhD, and Charles Nelson, PhD, of the Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children's Hospital, analyzed brain MRI scans from Romanian children in the ongoing Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), which has transferred some children reared in orphanages into quality foster care ...
2012-07-24
Most children exposed to high levels of alcohol in the womb do not develop the distinct facial features seen in fetal alcohol syndrome, but instead show signs of abnormal intellectual or behavioral development, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and researchers in Chile.
These abnormalities of the nervous system involved language delays, hyperactivity, attention deficits or intellectual delays. The researchers used the term s functional neurologic impairment to describe these abnormalities.. The study authors documented an abnormality ...
2012-07-24
CHICAGO – Total hip replacement (THR) and total knee replacement (TKR) surgeries were associated with increased risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI, heart attack) in the first two weeks after the surgical procedures, according to report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.
THR and TKR are effective for treating patients with moderate to severe osteoarthritis. These surgical procedures are commonly performed, with an estimated 1.8 million procedures performed annually worldwide, according to the study background.
"This ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] First study of heart 'maps' for kids could help correct rapid rhythms
American Heart Association meeting report: BCVS-12 Abstract 25
