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Definition
By Mayo Clinic staff
Cardiac ablation is a procedure that can correct heart rhythm problems (arrhythmias). Ablation typically uses catheters — long flexible tubes inserted through a vein in your groin and threaded to your heart — to correct structural problems in your heart that cause an arrhythmia.
Cardiac ablation works by scarring or destroying tissue that blocks the electrical signal that travels through your heart to make it beat. By clearing the signal pathway of the abnormal tissue, your heartbeat may beat normally again.
Cardiac ablation is sometimes done through open-heart surgery, but it's often done using catheters, making the procedure less invasive and shortening recovery times.
- Catheter ablation. National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/ablation/ablation_all.html. Accessed March 24, 2009.
- Arnsdorf MF, et al. Catheter ablation for ventricular arrhythmias. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 24, 2009.
- Cheng J, et al. Radiofrequency catheter ablation to prevent recurrent atrial fibrillation. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 24, 2009.
- Ganz LI. Catheter ablation of cardiac ablation: Overview and technical aspects. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 24, 2009.
- Ablation. American Heart Association. http://americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=6. Accessed June 1, 2009.
