CANet researchers publish breakthrough results
Researchers with the Cardiac Arrhythmia Network of Canada (CANet) hosted at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry published results today that may change the way clinicians treat Canadians with heart disease.
The Canadian-led clinical trial demonstrated that a procedure called catheter ablation, which involves inserting wires into the heart to cauterize short circuits, is a better treatment option for recurrent ventricular tachycardia (VT) than increased drug therapy. VT is a rapid deadly heartbeat that often causes sudden death.
Until now, practitioners didn’t know what the best treatment was when first-line drug therapy wasn’t enough.
“CANet is going to play a key role in taking the high impact results of this research and changing clinical practice,” said Dr. Anthony Tang, professor of medicine at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry and the senior investigator on the trial. “CANet will bridge the gap by putting the research results into the hands of those that can use these findings to better treat Canadians with heart disease.”
The multicenter, multi-national study, Ventricular Tachycardia Ablation versus Enhanced Drug Therapy in Structural Heart Disease (VANISH), was published today I the New England Journal of Medicine and was announced simultaneously at the Annual Scientific Conference of the Heart Rhythm Society in San Francisco.
