Stereotaxis

It has been about 2 1/2 months since my double ablation (afib and aflutter)
My AFIBS still contine on an almost daily schedule. The AFLUTTER has seemed to have been a success.

However, my pacemaker indicates I have had over 1300 events since the ablation. I would not consider this a success.

The events are much shorter in length.

The ablations were done in the State of Maryland. I live in Central Florida. and have read recently about the new Stereotaxis Heart Machine at the Florida Hospital. If I understood the story correctly there are about 130 of these new medical machines in the USA. Long story short.... large magnets are used to guide the catheders instead of by human hands.

There success rate as far safety is concerned is nearly 100 percent.

Most likely I will be needing a second abaltion... can anyone shed their knowledge on this new device and experience.

Doug,

Sorry to hear of your continued episodes after your ablation.

If you search this forum for "stereotaxis," you'll find a good deal of useful information. Just one example:

[www.afibbers.org]

Best wishes,



--Lance

I looked at the Central Florida website to get a sense of their experience and expertise. The two doctors heading up arrhythmia appear to be very experienced in manual given their hospital's high volume. Pollak has a bunch of papers dealing with VT starting in the 80's so he understands complexity well. Monir is younger and more recent publications dealt with automated detection of CFAE (complex fractionated electrograms) so he appears to understand complex issues in AF. Monir was a Jackman fellow so that's a positive.

The questions I would ask them would be about where they are on the learning curve on the Stereotaxis equipment. What stepwise protocol do they use? What is their approach with regards to power settings and lesion formation time? And success and complication rate, cumulative and more recent.

[www.flheart.org]

Doug, I forgot to mention that the blanking period post ablation is 3 months so I would wait to see if episodes are trending down.

Doug,

If you are considering a second ablation and you live in Florida I would go to Dr. Sergio Pinski at Cleveland Clinic in Weston. Dr. Pinski has an excellent record both in regard to success and safety.

Hans

Doug - I agree with Hans... you can't go wrong with Dr. Pinski. If I were there, he'd be the one with whom I'd consult. Good luck. Jackie

I found that Florida is one of the states that keep track of how well hospitals are doing by specialty and re-admissions. So I did a search on irregular heartbeats hospitalizations. Both Cleveland Clinic is slightly higher on volume and Central Florida re-admissions is the lowest in the state, and that's very good. Cleveland Clinic re-admissions is about twice that of Central Florida and in the expected range. You can also search the site for disciplinary or liability actions for the past 10 years and both Pinksi and Monir are clean.

Below are search results of all hospitals in Florida for the age group of 18+yrs:

[www.floridahealthfinder.gov]

and an explanation of readmissions:

The Readmission Rate is the percentage of patients who were readmitted to the same hospital or another short term acute care hospital for the same or related condition within 15 days of the initial discharge.
This rate is assigned to the hospital that first admitted the patient regardless of where the patient is readmitted.
Since sicker patients are more likely to be readmitted, the readmission rate is adjusted for the severity of patients’ illness.1 A rate that is “lower than expected” indicates the hospital had fewer readmissions compared to other hospitals with similar patients. A rate that is “higher than expected” indicates the hospital had more readmissions compared to other hospitals with similar patients.


PS. I wish all 50 states has a database like that of Florida and make it just as easily accessible. From the list, you can quickly screen out the facilities that have low volume or high re-admissions.

I confused Central Florida hospital with Florida Hospital in reading the search results. Florida hospital's volume is about 2.5 times that of Cleveland Clinic and re-admissions rate are higher than the expected range. I suggest going through the list looking for high volume and low re-admissions. I checked Jupiter hospital because they have low re-admissions rate and found they don't have an AF program. There are several others I haven't checked.