Doctors & patients are saying about 'A-Fib.com'...

"A-Fib.com is a great web site for patients, that is unequaled by anything else out there."

Dr. Douglas L. Packer, MD, FHRS, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN

"Jill and I put you and your work in our prayers every night. What you do to help people through this [A-Fib] process is really incredible."

Jill and Steve Douglas, East Troy, WI

“I really appreciate all the information on your website as it allows me to be a better informed patient and to know what questions to ask my EP.

Faye Spencer, Boise, ID, April 2017

“I think your site has helped a lot of patients.”

Dr. Hugh G. Calkins, MD Johns Hopkins,
Baltimore, MD

Doctors & patients are saying about 'Beat Your A-Fib'...

"If I had [your book] 10 years ago, it would have saved me 8 years of hell.”

Roy Salmon, Patient, A-Fib Free,
Adelaide, Australia

"This book is incredibly complete and easy-to-understand for anybody. I certainly recommend it for patients who want to know more about atrial fibrillation than what they will learn from doctors...."

Pierre Jaïs, M.D. Professor of Cardiology, Haut-Lévêque Hospital, Bordeaux, France

"Dear Steve, I saw a patient this morning with your book [in hand] and highlights throughout. She loves it and finds it very useful to help her in dealing with atrial fibrillation."

Dr. Wilber Su,
Cavanaugh Heart Center, Phoenix, AZ

"...masterful. You managed to combine an encyclopedic compilation of information with the simplicity of presentation that enhances the delivery of the information to the reader. This is not an easy thing to do, but you have been very, very successful at it."

Ira David Levin, heart patient,
Rome, Italy

"Within the pages of Beat Your A-Fib, Dr. Steve Ryan, PhD, provides a comprehensive guide for persons seeking to find a cure for their Atrial Fibrillation."

Walter Kerwin, MD, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA

Technology & Innovations

Arctic Cryoballoon Catheter

Balloon Catheters/Cryoballoon Catheters

One of the most exciting, important new technologies for A-Fib patients is the recently FDA approved CryoBalloon Catheter. The balloon system can be used to fit into a Pulmonary Vein opening, then ablate it with a minimum number of lesions.

Arctic Cryoballoon Catheter

This could be a vast improvement over current RF catheters which use pinpoint lesions to perform large-area ablations in a point-by-point fashion and which require a great deal of operator skill and manual dexterity. CryoBalloon ablations might become easier and faster to do than RF.

Using the energy source Cryo to make ablations may also be a major improvement for A-Fib patients. Cryo uses very cold temperatures to freeze tissue to create lesions without the vaporization, charring, and tissue damage of RF. It preserves heart tissue integrity rather than burning it. When cold temperatures are applied, Cryo catheters stick to the heart tissue they touch, much like a tongue on cold metal. Since the heart is beating and in constant motion during an ablation, this is a significant advantage. And Cryo produces no crust formations. RF burns can cause a crust to form over the ablated area (called a “thrombus”). This crust can fall off and lodge in a blood vessel, perhaps causing a blood clot and stroke. (That’s one of the reasons blood thinners like heparin are used during RF ablations, to prevent these blood clots.)

CryoBalloon Safer for Patients

In the clinical trials, the CryoBalloon catheter was safer for patients. There were no strokes, no pulmonary vein stenosis, no esophageal injury, and no coronary artery injury as sometimes occurs with RF ablation. There is also little danger of perforation and tamponade with the CryoBalloon catheter.

For a more detailed look at these new technologies, see Drs. Burkhardt and Natale’s article from which most of this report is taken: Burkhardt, JD, Natale, A. “New Technologies in Atrial Fibrillation Ablation,” Circulation. 2009;120:1533-1541. Last accessed Jan 11, 2013. http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/120/15/1533?eaf