5 December 2022
In October and November 2022, a team of cardiac surgeons from the Pirogov Clinic of High Medical Technologies at St Petersburg University performed a series of operations to implant a left atrial appendage occluder in patients with atrial fibrillation.
The occluder (plug) is a self-unfolding nitinol mesh device inserted into the heart through a catheter into the left atrial appendage. It prevents thromboembolism, which is the cause of stroke in atrial fibrillation.
Atrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia worldwide. More than 33 million people suffer from it. These are about two percent of the population throughout the world. Every year, more and more new cases are detected (it is predicted that by 2040 up to 215,000 new cases of the disorder will be recorded annually in Europe alone). The likelihood of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation increases fivefold. Stroke in such patients often leads to death. It is therefore so important to develop and implement novel methods.
At the first stage, our doctors supervised by Evgenii Zubarev, Candidate of Science (Medicine), treated atrial fibrillation by radiofrequency (catheter) ablation. The ablation helped destroy a section of myocardium that generated an irregular rhythm. At the next stage, together with their colleagues Karapet Davtyan, Doctor of Science (Medicine) from the National Medical Research Centre for Therapy and Preventive Medicine (Moscow), and Sergei Gureev, Candidate of Science (Medicine) from the Almazov National Medical Research Centre (St Petersburg), our doctors implanted the occluder.
Thus, the doctors from the Pirogov Clinic of High Medical Technologies at St Petersburg University implemented the state-of-the-art holistic approach to treating patients with atrial fibrillation.
The treatment at all stages was performed within the federal programme for providing high-tech medical care.