At HRS, Topera Topples Conventional Wisdom About Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation has always been frustratingly resistant to a cure. Even among the so-called easiest groups of patients, those with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (which is intermittent and terminates on its own), conventional ablation procedures using radiofrequency or some other energy modality to scar the heart and isolate the instigating electrical impulses (or triggers) provide long-term freedom from AF only 50% of the time. The search for better efficacy is compelling because patients that suffer from atrial fibrillation have a five to seven-fold increased risk for stroke.

While much of the cardiology industry has tried to improve the results by incrementally improving the therapies, Topera Medical Inc. challenges the assumptions upon which therapy has been based. (See Also see "Device Companies Follow New Map To Atrial Fibrillation" - Medtech Insight, 7 December, 2012..) Back in 2011, Topera’s scientific founder, electrophysiologist Sanjiv Narayan, MD, PhD, of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Diego was a lone voice at the Heart Rhythm Society’s (HRS) 32nd annual scientific sessions