Dr. Melvin Scheinman: 40th Anniversary of Catheter Ablation

Dr. Melvin Scheinman: 40th Anniversary of Catheter Ablation(ucsfhealthcardiology.ucsf.edu)

60 points by efavdb 3 days ago | 16 comments

mikestew 4 hours ago |

Wolf-Parkinson-White Syndrome, yup, that's me. It killed a college ball player about twenty years ago, killed a high school player just a few years ago:

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/community-aims-raise-a...

I was about 40 years old, and would have tachycardia under a very specific set of circumstances. As in, 30 minutes after exercise, heart rate was still at 140bpm. One stress test later, it was off to get that ablation.

My wife calls it "heart surgery", and I guess technically it is. It's about as easy a "surgery" as you're going to get: lie on a table, get the catheter, half hour later you're done. Stay overnight to make sure you don't bleed out from the catheter site, back home like nothing happened.

If it is suggested to you to get this done, do it, it is super-easy as far as invasive procedures go, and it could save your life. 20 years post-surgery, and I still run ultramarathon trail races, and haven't had a problem since.

HeyLaughingBoy 1 hour ago | |

It's funny. As a SW dev working on medical devices, I've done at least two catheter ablation machines that I can think of, but I never knew the specifics of exactly what problem it solves. I mean, I obviously know in detail what the device is doing, just not the why.

And it's specific to just that type of device: anything else I've worked on that I can remember ATM, I know what they are used for.

roughly 1 hour ago | |

I had the same surgery and would make the same recommendation. Shockingly safe, very high success rate, quick in & out, and easy recovery. A whole lot better than playing tachycardia whack-a-mole for the rest of your life, and those incidents get increasingly dangerous the older you get.

I’ll say I had a good chuckle a couple months later when I went in to have a wisdom tooth removed - the heart surgery felt like futuristic wizard science, the tooth removal felt like a burly man with pliers yanking at my bones.

mikestew 56 minutes ago | | |

Shockingly safe

I see what you did there.

Cyuonut 3 hours ago | |

I walked out after 11 hours from walking in. It's amazing that you can do it after an instrument piercing through a wall in your heart and freezing some nerves on the other side.

Barrin92 3 hours ago | |

It killed a kid in my sports class growing up as well. Dropped like a stone, cardiac arrest, couldn't be resuscitated. After that they had a 'heart health' mobile ekg come to the school once a year for people who wanted a check up which I thought was a great idea. They actually diagnosed a few people, I think at least two others with WPW but also a more common condition where the wall of the heart thickens which can also be dangerous during exercise.

mikestew 2 hours ago | | |

Happened to a 38 year old bike racer in the Seattle area years ago (https://recycledcyclesracing.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/brad-l...). I didn't mention him above because it was "cardiac arrest", though I always suspected it was undiagnosed WPW. We're not talking some out-of-shape person thinking they'll run a marathon on no training. No, bike racing is unbelievably hard if you don't want to get dropped and pulled from the race after ten minutes. And Brad was good at it.

So an in-shape athlete in a hard sport at the age of 38 just drops dead mid-race from cardiac arrest? Yeah, I have theories (which, not being a cardiologist, are probably wrong).

albriorix 5 hours ago |

This procedure changed my life. I had two radio frequency ablations in Calgary in the mid 2000s when I was 16 to cure PSVT. They did an electrophysiology study during the first surgery to determine it was dual AV node syndrome, which was one of the best case scenarios. If I had been born a few decades earlier this would have required open heart surgery. The crazy thing about this surgery was that I only had to lie flat for a few days and rest for a week before going back to playing football. No scars, no side-effects.

An interesting side note is that I was awake and high on valium for both surgeries. I remember them inducing the tachycardia with adrenalin and some stimulation during the first surgery and saying "yup there it is" out loud.

randerson 2 hours ago | |

Had this done too to cure PVCs - a irregular heartbeat that wouldn't have killed me, but it did lead to an enlarged heart and low energy.

I remember feeling great during the procedure thanks to whatever meds they gave me. I could watch them on a screen threading the wire in through my femoral artery all the way up into the inside of my heart. Then I felt the exact moment I was cured. The irregularity I'd known my whole life just changed rhythm. Then they injected some stuff to stress test the heart at high and low speeds. 24 hours later I was back home.

mbStavola 5 hours ago |

Hey, I had this done!

As far as surgeries go, this one is easy as hell on your body even if it's performed on your God damn heart! Genuinely life changing and haven't had a real issue in the decade since (occasional flutters are annoying, but expected). Sure as hell beats taking daily meds and an annual-ish episode which results in you getting pumped full of adenosine.

jakzurr 5 hours ago |

Oh my, seems to beat a lot of the alternatives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catheter_ablation

mikestew 4 hours ago | |

Considering that the alternative is "crack open your rib cage, open up your heart, poke around a bit and hope we get it right", yeah, an hour lying on a table while the cardiologist plays your choice of music on the speakers is a nice option.

brandonb 2 hours ago |

UCSF puts on a "Mini Med School" series of lectures for the public. If you don't live near San Francisco, some of the video are online. One by Dr. Scheinman is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm3SwORdBS4

zsoltkacsandi 5 hours ago |

> He spent the next three years pursuing this vision.

I had the chance to try this procedure out when I was 20, and it saved my life. Without it there is a high chance I would be dead. And it is because he had an idea that he pursued.

It is fascinating what modern medicine is capable of.

mikestew 3 hours ago |

I wish sites would date their articles. The first ablation in a human was in 1981, ergo more like “45th anniversary”.

pwncake 3 hours ago |

One of his protégé’s practices in the peninsula and does ablations for many in Silicon Valley