Monday, May 22, 2006

Catheter Ablation for Your Lungs

According to this article, seems radiofrequency catheter ablation is now being performed for asthmatics. Although I'm not sure the power used (I suspect its much lower than what we use in the heart because there is no heat loss due to blood flow), caution will still be needed to avoid collateral damage like recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis (supplies the vocal cord and wraps beneath the left mainstem bronchus), as well as other mediastinal structures. It's a clever application nontheless.

--Wes

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So, alot of time has passed since your comments here, i am curious to know which of these systems, HANSEN OR STEROTAXIS you are using if any and what made you decide on the one you picked? Thanks for your response!

Debbie