New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that radiation therapy can reprogram heart muscle cells to what appears to be a younger state, fixing electrical problems that cause a life-threatening arrhythmia without the need for a long-used, invasive procedure.
In theory, radiation therapy could reproduce the scar tissue usually created through catheter ablation but with a much shorter and totally noninvasive procedure, making the treatment available to more severely ill patients.
Surprisingly, the doctors found that patients experienced large improvements in their arrhythmias a few days to weeks after radiation therapy, much quicker than the months it can take scar tissue to form after radiation therapy, suggesting that a single dose of radiation reduces the arrhythmia without forming scar tissue.
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The researchers also found that the beneficial effects of radiation continued for at least two years in surviving patients. And importantly, they were able to demonstrate in mice that a lower dose of the radiation produced the same effect. A lower radiation dose could minimize long-term side effects and open the door to this type of treatment in other types of heart arrhythmias.
