The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Clinic to treat irregular heart beat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 25, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Clinic to treat irregular heart beat

Special Correspondent

Condition is found in ten percent of heart patients

HYDERABAD: CARE Hospital here has launched Heart Rhythm Clinic, a modern facility offering diagnostic and treatment modalities for correcting irregular heart beat, a condition found in two per thousand persons in normal population and among 10 per cent of those with heart problems.

The launching of the facility coincided with the completion of 1,000 Radio Frequency Ablations (RFA), a procedure to correct arrhythmias (abnormal rhythms).

It was inaugurated by G. N. Rao, well-known ophthalmologist and founder-director of the L.V.Prasad Eye Institute, here.

Later, addressing a press conference, B.Soma Raju, CARE Hospital chairman, and C. Narasimhan, electrophysiologist, said people of any age group who experienced palpitations, skipped heart beats, fluttering or racing heart beats, dizziness, sudden falls and heart failure should undergo evaluation as they could be the manifestation of serious heart rhythm problems and could lead to sudden cardiac arrest.

Increased risk

Patients with previous history of heart attacks and weak hearts were at increased risk of sudden cardiac arrest. The causes in 90 per cent of fainting cases were heart-related while the remaining 10 per cent were associated with brain.

In India, there were two million patients with curable heart arrhythmiasand surveys pointed out that only 20 per cent of patients with weak hearts survived. They said CARE was one of the five centres in the country to have `Carto' 3-D mapping system for accurate diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmias. The 1,000 patients who underwent RFA procedures included a months-old infant and a 90-year-old person.

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