A LOW-RISK surgery could cure a heart problem that is the leading cause of stroke among older Australians, Melbourne-based researchers have shown.
A study published this week showed that cardiac ablation surgery, which involves burning out misfiring electrical connections in the heart, can to not only cure atrial fibrillation but also significantly restore lost heart function.
More than 400,000 Australians suffer from atrial fibrillation – irregular heart beat. Many only find out they have it after they suffer a stroke.
Others, like 60-year-old former Australian cricketer Shaun Graf, live for years with a heart that can race instantly from 50 to 160 beats-per-minute without warning.
"When I first got it I didn't know what it was. You're short of breath, you've got a heavy feeling on the top of the chest, you don't know if you're having a heart attack," Mr Graf, who is Cricket Victoria's general manager, said.
"A decade ago, when I first got it, these sort of episodes would happen maybe three or four times a year – but in the last 12 months it was happening more like three or four times a day."
In June, while home alone with his dogs Frank and Roxie, Mr Graf suddenly lost control of his left arm. His speech became garbled. "S--t", he thought, "I'm having a stroke".
After paramedics treated him, Mr Graf met with Professor Peter Kistler, head of electrophysiology at The Alfred hospital and the Baker Institute, who explained his options.
Atrial fibrillation is usually treated with medication or electrical shocks to the heart to try to return the muscle to consistent rhythm. However these treatments do not always work in the long-term.
Instead, Professor Kistler proposed to Mr Graf a surgery he has been performing at The Alfred for more than 10 years, called cardiac ablation.
Irregular heart beats are caused by misfiring veins firing electrical impulses into the heart. Ablation involves passing a small wire through the veins in the leg and into the heart.
The wire is then used to burn the errant veins so they continue to carry blood but stop carrying electricity.
But health guidelines encourage the use of medication rather than ablation, as Professor Kistler explained.
"He looked at me and said 'you're not really listening, are you?' " Mr Graf said.
"I said 'no, I'm not – you're the boss, you're the expert, do what you think is best and get it done'."
Those health guidelines are now likely to change after Professor Kistler and his PhD student Dr Sandeep Prabhu published a study on cardiac ablation in the Journal of the American College of Cardiologythis week.
The study looked at 33 people who had the surgery in Melbourne after previous interventions using medication failed. The improvement was dramatic.
"The beauty of what this study showed is not only did the heart go back into the normal rhythm but its function improved dramatically, and that was a novel effect," Professor Kistler said.
Mr Graf is satisfied with a heart that is thumping to its normal rhythm again.
"The statistics say it'll stay in the beat for the rest of my life now," he said.
