December 1, 2009
Dear Friend of the Texas Heart Institute,
When our hearts flutter or skip a beat, it's usually harmless. For 49-year-old Casey DeRouen of New Iberia, Louisiana, however, a series of runaway heartbeats nearly cost him his life. When all else had failed, he was flown to Houston to see doctors at the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital who specialize in treating irregular heart rhythms. The Institute has some of the best doctors in this field.
Any irregularity in the heart's natural rhythm is called an arrhythmia. About four million Americans require treatment for this condition.
Mr. DeRouen had an arrhythmia called ventricular tachycardia, a potentially deadly acceleration of the heartbeat. This arrhythmia was caused by scar tissue that short-circuited his heart's electrical system. Doctors treated him with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). When his heart would beat too rapidly, that device would deliver an electrical shock to reset the rhythm.
Three weeks before he came to Houston, Mr. DeRouen had a mini-stroke, which triggered multiple episodes of tachycardia called an "electrical storm." Every 15 or 20 minutes, his heartbeat would accelerate, sometimes up to 250 times per minute. (A healthy adult's heart rate is usually 60 to 100 beats/minute.) During some of these episodes, Mr. DeRouen passed out. Each time his heart rate accelerated, the ICD would fire again, raising serious concern for his life.
By the time Mr. DeRouen arrived in Houston, his time was running out. "To my knowledge, nobody ever survived that many ICD shocks before," says Dr. Jie Cheng, who led the highly trained team that treated Mr. DeRouen.
Using computer-aided 3-D mapping, Dr. Cheng inserted a catheter that contained a special tool for finding and eradicating (or ablating) the areas that caused the short-circuiting in the patient's heart. This procedure—called radiofrequency catheter ablation—was risky, but it offered the best hope for stopping the electrical storms.
How did Mr. DeRouen do?
He went home the very next day—with a normal heartbeat.
This is just one example of the state-of-the-art techniques developed and used to treat irregular heart rhythms by specialists at our Center for Arrhythmias and Electrophysiology. These specialists also implant about 600 pacemakers each year—more than at any other center in Texas. And because our center performs clinical trials of new drugs and procedures, it can frequently offer patients and referring doctors a range of treatment options not available elsewhere.
Our catheterization laboratories are among the largest, busiest, and most fully equipped in the world. We perform more than 11,000 diagnostic and interventional cardiac procedures each year. Mr. DeRouen was one of more than 800 patients whom we have treated with radiofrequency ablation.
Your contributions continue to help us develop specialized techniques that can benefit our patients, including those with arrhythmias. As always, we are grateful for your generosity and support. .
To learn more about the Institute's research and education programs—and to see how you can help—please contact Marc Mattsson, our chief executive officer (832-355-3792 or mmattson@heart.thi.tmc.edu) or Irene Helsinger, chief operating officer (832-355-9510 or ihelsinger@heart.thi.tmc.edu).
Respectfully yours,
James T. Willerson, MD
President and Medical Director
Contact Dr. Willerson
Learn more about arrhythmias and treatment options.
Read the previous issue of Heart to Heart about how a heart assist device saved a life.
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