Dr. Eugene Crystal, director of Sunnybrook’s Schulich Heart Centre’s Arrhythmia Services, sits in front of a 42-inch screen, a keyboard, a mouse and a joystick-like control console known as “the puck.”
But he’s not playing a video game. He’s fixing unhealthy hearts.
With these tools, which are part of the newly installed Vdrive™ Stereotaxis robotic heart navigation system, Dr. Crystal is able to perform a procedure that eliminates the erratic heartbeats of his patients who suffer from atrial fibrillation. “Using robotic technology is better than using human hands to perform this surgery. There’s greater catheter stability,” says Dr. Crystal.
By manipulating two one-tonne magnets in giant pods that wheel into place on either side of his patient on the operating table, he moves a magnet-tipped, flexible, spaghetti noodle-thin catheter – or as many as three – using the magnetic field to the deepest, innermost parts of the heart to administer an ablation using radio-frequency energy at temperatures as high as 50 C. “Magnets are a lot gentler and use less force.”
The Vdrive™ offers a variety of improvements over the older mechanical “pull-wire” system:
- The Stereotaxis catheter is thin and flexible.
- The catheter’s tip contains three miniscule magnets that respond to a magnetic field created by two pods containing powerful iron-ore magnets on each side of the operating table.
- The flexibility and the robotic nature of the catheter make it much less likely to damage heart tissue.
- The electrophysiologist can move up to three catheters into place from the safety of a control booth, instead of standing by the patient’s bedside and being exposed to radiation.
- The amount of radiation required is reduced by more than half.
- Patients can usually go home the same or following day.
– Text by June Rogers
