Robots, GPS used to map hearts

By: Jennifer Matthews

Ryan Moore was playing baseball when he first felt his heart racing.

“It felt like it was going to jump out of my chest,” said Ryan Moore.
The new technique could be used to correct just about any type of arrhythmia in the future – making the procedures more precise and safer.

Ryan had Wolf-Parkinson-White Syndrome – a condition that made his heart beat at dangerously high levels. He needed a procedure called cardiac ablation to destroy the tiny fibers that cause the arrhythmia. Doctors place catheters in the heart to locate the abnormal tissue and deliver a shock.

But Ryan’s abnormality was deep within his heart, so doctors could not get to it with the standard approach. Dr. Warren Jackman used technology similar to a GPS device to map Ryan’s heart and see exactly where the catheters needed to go.

“In a sense it’s locating the position in space similar to how GPS works,” said Jackman. “Instead of taking the signals from a satellite, it took the signals from under the table.”

A robot guided the catheter on its own and corrected the exact problem spot that appeared on the map. It was the first automatic mapping of the heart, and the result for Ryan’s family was nothing short of a miracle.

Dr. Jackman says that the new technique could be used to correct just about any type of arrhythmia in the future – making the procedures more precise and safer.

“It should allow all physicians to get access to all of the areas,” he said.

Two weeks after his procedure, Ryan was back on his feet playing baseball.