Lviv doctors froze a patient’s heart to cure atrial fibrillation

At Lviv's First Territorial Medical Association, cardiac surgeons froze the heart of a 62-year-old patient to cure atrial fibrillation.

This was announced on Facebook by the General Director of Lviv's First Territorial Medical Association Oleh Samchuk.

"For the first time, our doctors froze the patient's heart to cure 'atrial fibrillation.' A new operation for Lviv is called cryoablation. Liquid nitrogen with a temperature of minus 60 degrees was injected into the heart of a 62-year-old patient, which killed diseased areas of the heart," Samchuk said.

According to the doctor, now, thanks to cryoablations, Lviv cardiac surgeons have been able to freeze areas of the atria so that they don't transmit chaotic impulses to the heart. The chances of recovery after such an intervention is 90%.

The first patient to get this chance was a Lviv resident who had been ill since 2018. His situation is special: the man couldn't take blood thinners because he has only one kidney. Before the operation, the patient's condition was already extremely severe, the episodes were repeated several times a day. He was threatened with a stroke.

"It simply came to our notice then. After that, cryoablation was performed on two more patients. Previously, they didn't have a chance to recover, because the disease isn't treated with medication: drugs dilute the blood to minimize the occurrence of blood clots," added Samchuk.

The first operations for Lviv cardiac surgeons were performed by colleagues of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery named after Mykola Amosov.

Note

Atrial fibrillation is the leading cause of ischemic stroke. There is an impulse in the atrium behind which forces walls to contract uncontrollably: 400-500 times a minute with a norm of 50-60. The risk of blood clots in this condition increases 5 times, and accordingly 5 times higher risk of stroke. Up to 800,000 Ukrainians live with atrial fibrillation.