Carilion Clinic is a leader in providing new and innovative cardiac therapies.
Our Center for Atrial Fibrillation provides world class care in catheter-based interventional ablation for patients with atrial fibrillation. Carilion is the only hospital in western Virginia where patients can have the minimally invasive MAZE heart procedure to treat atrial fibrillation as well. This new approach, not widely available elsewhere, builds upon earlier but less effective surgical treatments for patients with atrial fibrillation who are otherwise healthy.
Rather than opening the chest, the MAZE procedure accesses the heart through small incisions on the side. A tiny camera and video-guided instruments are sent to the heart, which continues to beat normally so there is no need for a heart/lung bypass machine.
As with the open heart procedure, the surgeon identifies the source of the faulty electrical signals, using an electrode device to create precise scars (ablations) which block those signals.
For patients who are appropriate candidates, the minimally invasive MAZE procedure has many advantages. It is faster, taking about half the time of traditional open heart surgery, easier to recover from and is effective about 90% of the time.
For more information, please call the Carilion Clinic Center for Atrial Fibrillation at 540-982-8204.
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