Heart procedure photo

Dr. Kristin Ellison displays a device used as part of a new procedure for pacing the heart. The procedure is now being performed at King’s Daughters in Ashland. Photo by Glenn Puit.A physician at King’s Daughters Medical Center is providing one of the most advanced procedures available to patients when it comes to pacing the human heart.

 

Dr. Kristin Ellison is an electrophysiologist who performs a technique known as “his bundle pacing.” It amounts to pacing the heart in a way that reduces stress on the overall heart. The stress, commonly referred to as a wobble of the heart, can occur in a certain percentage of patients who receive a more traditional pacemaker procedure.

“The advance in our technology … and the advent of new delivery systems has made it a much more feasible procedure,” said Ellison.

Ellison said the wobble of the heart is avoided through a complex “mapping the electrical system,” she said.

“We can find the sweet spot, or his bundle (of the heart’s electrical system),” she said. “From there, we screw in the lead and when we pace from that lead, the electrical system goes down the specialized wiring tracts of the heart and will activate the heart as I like to say ‘As mother nature does and who does it best.’ It will pace the heart without what is called the wobble-dyssnchrony.”

Ellison said not everyone has a his bundle that can be reached.

“There are certain cases where the (electrical) block is too far out in the electrical system that it can’t be overcome,” she said. “But if the electrical blockage is at or near the his bundle it, the electrical blockage, can be corrected.”

Ellison performed a successful procedure of his bundle pacing recently at King’s Daughters. It is believed she is the only physician in Kentucky performing the procedure. The procedure fits for a patient who has had a weakening in the heart muscle or who has a low normal heart pump function, and it can greatly improve quality of life.

“I’m activating the heart through its own specialized wiring tract, going beyond the level of (electrical) block in that wiring tract,” she said.

(606)326-2648 |

[email protected]