MITERA Paediatric Cardiology Clinic: Five-fold decrease in radiation exposure for the treatment of paediatric arrhythmias

The use of radiation in the treatment of paediatric arrhythmias is limited to the minimum, based on the new method applied by the Electrophysiology Laboratory of the Paediatric Cardiology Clinic of MITERA Children’s Hospital that serves as the only fully equipped Clinic in Greece for the treatment of paediatric arrhythmias.

The Paediatric Cardiology Clinic of MITERA Children’s Hospital was represented in this year’s pan-European Conference on Paediatric Cardiology with a paper dealing with a particularly significant progress registered in invasive cardiac electrophysiology.

As stated at the Conference by Mr. Ioannis Papagiannis who is the Director of the Paediatric Cardiology Clinic and Head of the Electrophysiology Laboratory of MITERA Pediatric Clinic, ‘The treatment of paediatric arrhythmias with catheter ablation was a major step forward in the management of arrhythmias. However, until recently, such interventions required high radiation doses, arousing concerns as to potential long term effects or complications. With the new method, catheterization inside the heart is mapped in three dimensions with the aid of harmless electromagnetic waves reducing, thus, by five-fold the average amount of ionizing radiation compared to the classic radioscopic method. In some cases, radiation tends even to be zeroed’.

Mr. I. Papagiannis concluded that ‘The new method has higher success rates compared to the classic radioscopic method and is considered to be absolutely safe for the treatment of paediatric arrhythmias’.