Impella live

On Sunday 22nd April 2018, our IRK Division provided clinical support for cardiology performance, which was presented as a live case within the frame of the 21st annual Prague Ablation Workshop, held from 21st to 24th April 2018 at the Institute of Molecular Genetics, the Czech Academy of Sciences. This workshop, organized by the IKEM Cardiology Clinic and the Hospital Na Homolce is attended every year by leading Czech and foreign experts in cardiology-arrhythmia.

This time it was the electrophysiological performance of radiofrequency ablation of ventricular tachycardia at the catheterization workplace of the hospital Na Homolce where a 3D model of the left ventricle was created using the electro-anatomical 3D mapping system. This provides the physicians with a visual idea of the shape of the patient’s heart section and enables them to identify the sources of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias. Subsequently, radiofrequency (thermal) energy is applied to individual locations in the heart, determined according to the created 3D model, using the so-called ablation catheter inserted through the groin into the heart. This will destroy dangerous sources of arrhythmias.

During this difficult procedure, our Impella CP was used to provide hemodynamic support when the need for dangerous arrhythmia had to be triggered and let it run for several minutes so that physicians could with the greatest possible precision identify and destroy the exact locus of arrhythmia. As the patient’s heart rate performance has been greatly reduced after extensive myocardial infarction, heart failure would lead to a critical drop in blood pressure and insufficient oxygenation of important organs, especially the brain.

A successfully completed demanding procedure lasted almost five hours and was performed by the head of the Department of Cardiology at the Hospital Na Homolce, Professor MD. Petr Neužil, CSc., FESC together with Professor MD. Vivek Reddy, a doctor from The Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, U.S.A., and the lead physician of the Multifunctional Catheterization Laboratory of the Hospital Na Homolce MD. Jan Petrů. In addition to the established indications for the use in the high-risk coronary interventions and cardiogenic shock, the use of Impella has been expanded in the Czech Republic also into the ablation of hemodynamically unstable ventricular tachycardia.

IRK Division