A recent article in Discover magazine called “When a Heart Misfires” (August 2000) discusses a condition known as V-tach, or ventricular tachycardia. V-tach arises from abnormal or diseased tissue in the ventricles that starts firing electrical impulses at random. Normally, heartbeats appear on electrocardiograms as tight, high spikes. The tightness reflects the efficiency of the heart’s electrical conduction system. The wide tracings that show up on an electrocardiogram of a heart with V-tach reflect less efficient conduction.
A person who is suffering from acute arrhythmia can gain immediately relief through drugs, which suppress the diseased area, preventing them from misfiring. But, until now, the only permanent cure for V-tach was a long-term drug therapy or open-heart surgery. Today doctors can run an electrode-tipped catheter up the patient’s femoral artery through the aorta and to the heart. When the catheter reaches the heart, the doctors can use the electrode to kill the diseased tissue rendering it unable to ever misfire again.
V-tach can be caused by a congenital defect, a scar from a viral infection, a touch of atherosclerosis, or a bit too much caffeine. Often, it is not possible for doctors to determine the cause, but luckily the cure is quite apparent. |
2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education