What Is Atrial Fibrillation?

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is a heart rhythm disorder. AF may cause your heart to beat rapidly and irregularly, which may produce symptoms such as palpitations, dizziness and fatigue. AF decreases the heart’s ability to pump blood, and can increase your risk of stroke.

An estimated 15 percent of strokes are the result of untreated Atrial Fibrillation , which can make an individual five times more likely to have a stroke.

Common Symptoms

Some people with AF have no symptoms. When symptoms do occur, the most common symptom is palpitations. A palpitation is a sensation of rapid or irregular heartbeat that can sometimes produce anxiety.
Many individuals report an irregular fluttering sensation in their chests when having an episode of AF. Some become light-headed or faint.

Other symptoms include:

• Weakness
• Lack of energy or fatigue
• Breathlessness
• The need for increased effort to breathe
• Chest pain

Cause of Atrial Fibrillation

In some individuals, the heart's electrical signals lose their regular pattern. This occurs when the heart's two upper chambers (the atria) start sending out uncoordinated electrical signals. Healthy atria contract 60-80 times per minute, but fibrillating atria quiver at 300-400 times per minute. As a result of this quivering, the atria cannot fully contract and only a portion of the atria’s blood is released into the ventricles.

The body has a mechanism (the AV node) that attempts to block the ventricle next door from the extra electrical impulses emitted by the atria, but some impulses still get through. Consequently, the ventricle beats more often than it should. This gives rise to some of the more common symptoms of breathlessness and fatigue.

Treatment Options

Medications are currently the only FDA-approved treatment for AF. There are a number of anti-arrhythmic medicines available today. And yet many people, perhaps you, may not be tolerating your AF medications. Or your medicines may have failed to control your AF.

A Possible Solution

A new investigational AF treatment from ProRhythm has been approved by the FDA for use in a clinical research study to compare its safety and effectiveness against approved anti-arrhythmic medications. In this new investigational treatment, a procedure is performed with a catheter that ablates selected tissue in the heart so that it cannot conduct the electrical signals that cause AF.

Click here to find out more about this investigational treatment called HIFU ablation. And click here to learn more about the clinical study going on now, and how you might be able to participate.