Meaning of "ablation"?

[Makaobim]

What is the meaning of ablation and atrial ablation?

[CDreamer]

Ablation - Literally means to obliterate.

Atrial ablation means introducing a catheter into a vein in the groin and feeding it into the heart and then with the tip of the catheter - making tiny, very accurately placed burns on the surface - normally around the veins where the rogue electrical pulses which cause AF begin. By burning the cells within the atria scar tissue forms which acts as a barrier to these rogue electrical pulses - and when it works - obliterates AF.

It sounds harsh but having had 2 ablation I can honestly say it was a pain free and for the patient, pretty easy procedure to undergo.

Got to the AFA and download the leaflet which will give you much more detail.

[BobD Volunteer]

To be pedantic one should never talk about atrial ablation or pulmonary vein ablation as by definition (see CDreamer's post) these parts of you body would be destroyed. The correct term is pulmonary vein isolation procedure or PVI but this is most often just called "an ablation". Similarly if somebody really did have a cardiac ablation they would be dead.

As an aside and to show how new all this is, when I had my first ablation in 2005 I told a nurse at my surgery and she thought that I meant I had a varicose vein removed as until them that term was common for that procedure..

[CDreamer in reply to BobD]

Thank you for the correction Bob 🤭

[BobD Volunteer in reply to CDreamer]

Sorry didn't mean it as if you were wrong, just a hobby horse of mine and you know how pedantic we aries can be lol