How to prevent recurrence of arrhythmia?

Medical experts from the United States, Germany, Poland, and Russia argue that the renal denervation technique, a minimally invasive intervention, helps to significantly reduce the rate of recurrence of arrhythmias and to correct the background increase in blood pressure .

Arrhythmia can be attributed to the most common cardiac pathologies. The disease is characterized by a violation of the frequency and rhythm of heart beats, a disorder of arousal and muscle contraction. In many patients, rhythm disturbance is accompanied by an increase in blood pressure, which further exacerbates the problem. One of the most dangerous forms of arrhythmia is atrial fibrillation . We are talking about a special kind of supraventricular tachyarrhythmia that occurs with chaotic electrical activity of the atria at a pulse frequency of 350-700 per minute. This frequency makes coordination of contractions impossible. It is very important not only to treat the pathology, but also to prevent its further relapses, each of which carries a serious danger to the patient.

One of the methods of such prevention can be called one that was discovered by scientists representing the National Medical Research Center and the Federal Center for Cardiovascular Surgery. Doctors launched a multicenter randomized clinical project, during which they determined the positive preventive effect of renal denervation. The method of destruction of nerves located in the walls of the arteries of the kidneys is performed simultaneously with the standard interventional intervention, which is a catheter radiofrequency isolation of the terminal sections of the pulmonary venous vessels. This allows you to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence of arrhythmia and favors the normalization of blood pressure.

In the process of the project work, scientists got acquainted with the case histories of more than 300 patients suffering from atrial fibrillation accompanied by an increase in blood pressure. For half of them, catheter ablation was used, and for the other half, in addition to standard procedures, the method of renal denervation was used. As a result, the best results were recorded in the second group of patients: during the year after the end of treatment, the percentage of absence of recurrence of arrhythmia in these patients was higher than in the first group. In addition, their blood pressure was completely normal.

Previously, scientists had already conducted a similar study, although it was much less extensive: it involved only 27 patients suffering from atrial fibrillation amid increased blood pressure. The results then had much in common with the current results. It turns out that during the second study, the experts only confirmed the information that existed before. Perhaps the next step will be the introduction of a new method in clinical practice.

Material published in the Journal of the American Medical Association