Daily Mail article regarding LAAO

[AFAssociation1]

AF Association features in a Daily Mail article today regarding the Left Atrial Appendage Occlusion procedure. To read the article please follow this link: dailym.ai/1QeN8jC

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give lots of hope to af sufferers who dont like taking anti coagulant meds......

[jennydog]

A very interesting article. The Daily Mail has a health feature every Tuesday and it's usually excellent.

Perhaps they will one day fit a Watchman whenever they do a first ablation.

[cat55 in reply to jennydog]

I have just read the article and found it very interesting. I really don't like taking Warfarin or I suspect any other anti coagulant as my A.F episodes are far and few between. This is something I would be very interested in as the fear of stroke or bleed is never far away in my mind. Lets hope the trials show good results I would so love to have a life back free of the constant niggling worry about meds and diet (just love the greens but watch what I eat as feel I don't want to go more than the 6mgm a day of Warfarin I take)

Best wishes to all on a lovely sunny day, even in Lancashire! Kath

[Rellim296 in reply to cat55]

Yes, lovely weather here in Cumbria too. I'm right with you here Kath as you know, but I didn't make any progress with my EP when I raised the subject of atrial appendage closure as he doesn't offer it and thought it would not be available to me on the NHS. It is said that the amount of warfarin you take doesn't matter, but I'd love to be on a far lower dose too.

[EngMac]

Apparently not everyone has a LAA. I asked the AF nurse if this was checked for my heart and she said they don't check for this. So, if someone doesn't have one, why are they put on anticoagulants? I guess it is easier to assume than to verify.

[BobD Volunteer in reply to EngMac]

That is news to me. Also it is only THOUGHT that the clots form in LAA so why take chances. I recently read somewhere that some experts are having second thoughts about why it is there and feel that we do need it after all..

[paulh1]

My questions would be what happens when this device actually blocks a clot? Does the clot just stay there waiting to accumulate more and eventually block the whole artery? Would this not then increase your blood pressure? Have to read more on this but the theory does sound intriguing.

[10gingercats in reply to paulh1]

What Petr Wh says makes sense re. scaffold and sieve etc. This is what the umbrella 'trap' for a hole in the heard does.Instead of the clots rushing through the hole the 'mesh' sieves the clots...this roughly how it was explained to me before a hole in the heart op. as an adult.

[PeterWh]

Reading the article the key thing is that it says

"The body's cells grow into this scaffold, sealing off the left atrial appendage in three months."

The sentence before says about the sieve effect. How I read it is that effectively it acts as a sieve for a few months (collecting any clots) and in that time the body cells grow over the watchman and provides the block and any clots caught form part of that growth.

[BobD Volunteer in reply to PeterWh]

Sounds right. This has been around for quite a few years now so I don't quite understand why it has just hit the news again. Maybe some centres are considering more extensive use by doing these trials

[PeterWh in reply to BobD]

From reading other articles and reports I think that some more hospitals have done trials recently / are doing them now and also some of the earlier trials now have a number of years experience behind them now so the results would statistically more sound. Also it is like all new things, and certainly true in the medical world, that initially the costs are high and then they drop. As we all know when the cost drops there is more reason for doing the op. In addition with more getting AF in their 40s and 50s than ten years ago the lifetime benefits are very much more significant.

[BobD Volunteer]

Peter, you know I do wonder if more people are actually getting AF at younger ages. I think it more likely that better diagnosis is picking up more cases. We know from experience and reading so many case histories that countless people. especially ladies went years without proper diagnosis being fobbed off with panic attacks etc. Better publicity has brought AF much more into the public conciousness and this is to be praised. Even so I still think that the estimates of numbers of patients is well below reality. During recent random ECG testing admittedly in an older population I found nearly 10% of those tested had an arrhythmia with over half of those showing AF.

Bob