A potential addition to treatment
Gordon F. Tomaselli, MD, past president of the American Heart Association and current dean of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City, who was not involved in the research, told theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology that “the results are kind of interesting; it actually changes the function in the ganglion in the neck that actually innervates the heart, excites the heart, if you will.
Dr. Gordon Tomaselli
“Clearly it wasn’t something that was just happening while this therapy was applied, but instead there’s some changes made when the sympathetic ganglion is targeted,” Tomaselli said. “They’re changing it functionally somehow, reducing the stimulating input to the heart, and in doing so, reducing the frequency of arrhythmias.”
Tomaselli suggested TCMS might be helpful in choosing among alternative treatments, such as sympathetic denervation. “It might also be a way to decide whether or not somebody might benefit, for example, from permanent dissection,” he said. “If you do this therapy, if it quiets things down but then it comes back after a while, you may consider denervation of that ganglion.”
Tomaselli adds that this treatment might be applied in different ways. “In some future iteration, it could even be implantable, could be patient activated or automatically activated ― for example, if a rapid heart rate is detected, that kind of thing.”
He noted that “there may be applications of this ultra-low frequency to other arrythmias, more common arrythmias, less life-threatening arrythmias, like atrial fibrillation; so there are a number of ways you might consider using this to treat cardiac rhythm disturbances by targeting the nervous system.”
Nazarian has consulted for Siemens, CardioSolv, and Circle Software and is a principle investigator for research funding to the University of Pennsylvania from Biosense-Webster, Siemens, ImriCor, and the National Institutes of Health. No other relevant financial relationships have been disclosed.
This story first appeared on Medscape.com.