A recent American study has hinted that catheter ablation, the procedure in which energy is emitted from a catheter with the aim to try and eliminate the very source of irregular heartbeat, should be the preferred therapy and might just be more effective than medicines and other treatment measures.

Researchers, led by Dr. David Wilber of Loyola University Medical Center, in the multi-center study, have revealed that there were much better outcomes in patients of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation who had undergone catheter ablation. These were the patients who had previously failed to respond to anti-arrhythmic drug therapy.

After an evaluation of data collected over a period of 9 months, researchers discovered that 66% of the patients who had received catheter ablation managed to benefit, as compared to only 16% patients of the group which was treated with anti-arrhythmic drug therapy.

"Similarly, 70 percent of patients treated by catheter ablation remained free of symptomatic recurrent atrial arrhythmia versus 19 percent of patients treated with (drug therapy). In addition, 63 percent of patients treated by catheter ablation were free of any recurrent atrial arrhythmia versus 17 percent of patients treated with ADT", said Dr. Wilber.

Details of the study have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.