Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is characterized by an irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure, and other heart-related complications. If you or a loved one has AFib, there’s good news, says L. Bing Liem, DO, FHRS, FACC, CCDS, El Camino Hospital’s medical director of cardiac electrophysiology. “El Camino Hospital offers a full spectrum of AFib treatment options and advanced technology that rivals or surpasses those at academic centers. Our patients can now be offered treatments that are very effective.”
In minimally invasive catheter ablations, for example, the doctor inserts a thin, flexible tube in a blood vessel in the leg or neck, guides it to the heart, then uses either heat, cold, or radio energy to scar tissue where the irregular beats are triggered. The treated tissue helps to stop the irregular heartbeat.
“The majority of these patients go home the same day,” says Dr. Liem. “Today’s mapping technology enables us to be more precise and effective in delivering the ablation. Thanks to our skilled and experienced physicians, our success and complication rates, and our procedure times, beat the national average. Our patients typically feel much better — they feel they’ve been given their life back.”
This article first appeared in the Summer 2016 edition of the El Camino Hospital Health Beat magazine.
