Paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia, also known as supraventricular tachycardia, is a type of cardiac arrhythmia. Patients with this condition may experience a sudden increase in heart rate (mostly over 150 beats per minute) for a period of time (from a few seconds to several hours) and then a sudden change to a normal heart rate. What causes supraventricular tachycardia? Supraventricular tachycardia can be caused by two general causes: 1. An extra muscle (probably less than the thickness of a hair) grows between the atria and the ventricles during congenital development, which, to use a common analogy, is like an extra wire causing a short circuit. This extra muscle is called an atrioventricular bypass, or bypass for short. Although congenitally bypassed, the vast majority of people do not have episodes of tachycardia for a long time, and only a small percentage of people usually have an electrocardiogram that reveals evidence of the presence of bypass, medically known as pre-excitation syndrome. 2. Two pathways with significantly different properties are created in the area of the atrioventricular node, a key tissue that normally controls the heartbeat, forming a double pathway in the atrioventricular node. This condition tends to be more common after middle age and is mostly associated with acquired aging, but of course there are also some congenital factors. Whether there is an atrioventricular bypass or an AV node double pathway, patients may not have an episode of supraventricular tachycardia for many years or may only have an episode once in a very long time. This is mainly because the presence of a bypass or a double pathway is only one condition for the onset of an attack, but the onset of an attack requires a trigger – premature beats! Both atrial and ventricular premature beats can cause episodes of supraventricular tachycardia. The older the patient is, the more likely he or she is to experience premature beats. This is the main reason why many patients experience more frequent episodes of supraventricular tachycardia as they get older. What are the risks of supraventricular tachycardia? In general, supraventricular tachycardia is a benign condition that does not lead to death, but may affect the patient’s quality of life. In cases of weakness, cardiac insufficiency, or pregnancy, episodes of supraventricular tachycardia may be more troublesome. During an attack, patients can terminate it by holding their breath, stimulating the throat with their fingers causing dry heaving, or jumping. It is also possible to press on the eyeballs or massage the neck, but both of these methods may lead to retinal detachment or even syncope if not done properly and are generally best avoided. How is supraventricular tachycardia treated? If you feel a sudden rapid heartbeat, you should count your own pulse or heartbeat for one minute to see how many times there are, and also go to a nearby hospital for an electrocardiogram as soon as possible to confirm the diagnosis. If it is confirmed to be supraventricular tachycardia, your doctor will usually give you an injection of medication to stop it. Occasionally, it will be terminated with esophageal stimulation. When you have supraventricular tachycardia, medications can only control it temporarily. To eradicate the disease, catheter ablation is necessary. Many patients with supraventricular tachycardia are worried about their ablation procedure, and some doctors even make it sound difficult, but this worry is completely unwarranted. In fact, ablation of supraventricular tachycardia is an introductory procedure for all doctors who perform catheter ablation, which is equivalent to appendectomy in general surgery. It can be performed in general tertiary care hospitals. The vast majority of supraventricular tachycardias are relatively easy to cure, and only a few lesions particularly close to the AV node or the bundle of Hirschsprung are more risky, but these patients are relatively rare. The procedure is performed under local anesthesia and allows the patient and surgeon to talk and even joke with each other during the procedure. The surgeon simply punctures the patient’s neck or chest or the root of the thigh several times, places a surgical instrument into the heart, and after examination finds a bypass or confirms a double pathway, the lesion can be destroyed by the delivery of radiofrequency or cryo energy. The success rate of a single procedure is usually over 95%, and is close to 100% in highly specialized hospitals. Even in the case of bypasses or double pathways close to the AV node and Hirschsprung’s bundle, most experienced surgeons can ablate safely and successfully, and only a very small number of right-sided episcleral bypasses may fail to ablate, while left-sided episcleral bypasses are more likely to succeed. Of course, individual patients may require two ablations for special reasons, but these cases are rare. In the case of supraventricular tachycardia ablation, the difference in level between surgeons is mainly in the length of the procedure and the degree of patient pain. The average surgeon can take 2-3 hours or more to complete an ablation of supraventricular tachycardia, while high level surgeons usually only need the patient to lie on the operating table for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Fu Wai Hospital is the largest ablation center in the world. After years of research, Director Yao Yan’s team in Ward 1 adopted the original “3D mode unilateral femoral vein ablation method”, in which the whole procedure is performed entirely through one femoral vein, so that there is no need to puncture the neck, chest or both thighs, but only the root of one thigh. This means that instead of puncturing the neck, chest or both thighs, only the root of one thigh is needed, and no artery is punctured, so the patient has less pain and recovers quickly after the procedure. Patients can be discharged from the hospital the same day or the next day. In addition, we are the first in the world to carry out “full 3D electrophysiology” with the help of advanced 3D navigation technology. The amount of X-ray used during the operation is extremely small, which can be reduced to one hundredth or even one thousandth of the conventional amount, which is especially meaningful for children, women and patients with high risk of tumor. In terms of cost, if the national policy of single-use consumables is strictly implemented, the current cost should be around 30,000 RMB.