Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare first in Tennessee to offer “paradigm-shifting” technology for AFib patients

MEMPHIS, Tenn. , March 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare is proud to announce it is the first healthcare system in Tennessee to offer the Medtronic PulseSelect™ Pulsed Field Ablation (PFA) technology to patients suffering from atrial fibrillation (AF). It’s also one of the first 25 sites to roll out this procedure in the United States.

“Pulsed Field Ablation is a paradigm-shifting technology,” said Dr. Yehoshua Levine, division chief of cardiac electrophysiology at Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare who performed the first PFA at Methodist University Hospital. “This type of development happens probably once every 15 years and it’s a complete change in the way we perform ablation.”

AFib is the most common type of treated heart arrhythmia, and it affects more than 59 million people around the world. An arrhythmia is when a heart beats irregularly or too fast or too slow. Currently, traditional ablations are conducted by heating heart tissue or freezing it.

With PFA, this technique only takes minutes to target a specific area of the heart tissue to resolve arrhythmia. Ablation is now even more efficient because the same procedure is reduced to seconds by using electrical pulses to target heart tissue. This efficiency means less time that a patient is under anesthesia and leads to faster recovery.

“PFA allows us to deliver timely treatment to more patients when they need help the most,” said Dr. James Litzow, cardiac electrophysiologist with Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital. “Being the first health system in the Memphis-area to use this technology demonstrates our steadfast commitment to innovation for the benefit of our patients.”

Across the MLH system, the cardiovascular team at Methodist University Hospital conducted the first PFA for the healthcare system on March 11 with Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital’s cardiovascular team conducting its first PFA on March 12.

About Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare

Based in Memphis, Tennessee, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare has been caring for patients and families regardless of their ability to pay for more than 100 years. Guided by roots in the United Methodist Church and founded in 1918 to help meet the growing need for quality healthcare in the greater Memphis area, MLH has grown from one hospital into a comprehensive healthcare system with 13,000 Associates supporting six hospitals, including nationally ranked Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, ambulatory surgery centers, outpatient facilities, a hospice residence and physician and specialty practices serving communities across the Mid-South. From transplants and advanced heart procedures to expert neurology services and compassionate cancer care, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare offers clinical expertise with a focus on improving every life we touch.

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SOURCE Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare