Cryoballoon Ablation

Has anyone heard of this type of "innovative" ablation, which uses cold, not heat?

[www.beckershospitalreview.com]

[www.stopafib.org]

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In terms of the outcome, what we have seen is that the patients actually are recovering faster, and the healing process is quicker from the initial ablation, and the safety profile is definitely much improved compared to our prior experience.

Just curious as to your thoughts and experiences?

Thanks!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2020 11:43AM by cirenepurzalot.

I actually work for a hospital system in St. Louis, and the top EP guy here (the EP that did my procedure) requested this product be added to the arsenal of options. I sit on the group that approves and denies these requests. Anyway, we approved the Arctic FRont cryo ablloon for a six month pilot, and I remember going in to see him a few weeks after the conclusion of the pilot and he said (I'm paraphrasing) that he likes the idea of the cryo approach, but it's very limiting. It can only be used to do the large pulmonary vein region, and any smaller work he does still needs RF. He said RF has improved in the last few years and is much better and has no longer term disadvantages over the cryo. When the pilot was over, he didn't push to keep the cryo. This is just what I heard from one very experienced and respected EP here in St. Louis.

It's not that new. I was offered it 13 years ago as part of a study, but went for the more standard RF ablation.

Thanks for your input! I appreciate it.

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Ken
It's not that new. I was offered it 13 years ago as part of a study, but went for the more standard RF ablation.

Very true. It's been around a long time. It made a recent resurgence, but RF seems to still be the gold standard.

Yeah, cryo definitely isn't new and everything Keefer said about it is true. Its primary advantage is it makes doing an ablation easy, so EPs with less training and experience can do them. That's not the sort of thing I would look for as a patient.

My PVI was done with a cryoballoon. When I had my touch-up (RF of course), the EP (a more experienced guy) had to ablate 1 reconnected PV. He said it was frequent after a cryoablation.

Cryo is inferior to RF. It’s used because it gets more operators trained more quickly.

If you have the option, seek better for yourself.

Very informative! Thank you so much.

I hope that they will keep progressing the technology so it's less and less invasive, less recovery time, higher success, etc.... I'll wait as long as possible.