Tamara Miller recalls when her son Austin, now a nine-year-old, was an “easy-going, sweet baby.” Then the Millers’ lives changed. “We noticed that in preschool he would get a kind of bluish appearance to his face, and he would be winded. Every year it seemed to get worse and worse,” says Tamara. And, due to the medications he took for his cardiac arrhythmia (abnormal heartbeat), Austin went through many years of being irritable.

A DRAMATIC CHANGE

In 2004, both Austin’s health and personality changed dramatically. Austin underwent cryoablation at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, the only hospital in the state of Michigan that performs the procedure for pediatric cardiac arrhythmias.

Arrhythmias may cause the heart to beat too fast or too slow. Symptoms can start as early as infancy and can include poor eating or irritability.

Treatment for arrhythmia is performed in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. First, doctors identify where the short circuit occurs within the heart. Then, they insert a catheter into that circuit and turn on energy that either heats—radiofrequency ablation—or cools—cryoablation.

The first step of cryoablation is to cool, but not freeze, the area suspected of causing the arrhythmia in a process called cryomapping. At that point, the heart loses its electrical function without losing any of its mechanical function. The heart cells are alive and recoverable, which provides a measure of safety not available in radiofrequency ablation. The part with the arrhythmia is frozen, eliminating its ability to carry electrical signals. Then the heart’s normal conduction system works the way it’s supposed to and creates a normal heartbeat.

AN IMPORTANT TREATMENT

“Cryoablation may not be indicated for every arrhythmia that we treat in a catheterization laboratory,” says Peter Fischbach, M.D., Director of the Pediatric Electrophysiology Lab at the University of Michigan Health System and Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at U-M Medical School. Fischbach says that while standard radiofrequency ablation works for many arrhythmias, “cryoablation certainly is going to have a very important role in treating young children.” Doctors at U-M have treated 30 to 40 patients each of the two years the technology has been available.

Another important part of Austin’s treatment was the medical staff. “They were awesome,” says Tamara. “Austin loves the doctors. Everyone was wonderful.” She also says that his recovery was “amazing!” Austin now plays basketball, baseball, and football. She adds, “Austin is his happy-go-lucky self again.”