New Delhi (NVI): For the first time in the world, a 73-year-old patient suffering from a severe form of dilated cardiomyopathy or ventricular arrhythmia, has been treated with a proton beam at the Centro Nazionale Adroterapia Oncologica (CNAO) of Pavia, Italy.
The intervention, developed in collaboration with the Irccs Policlinico San Matteo Foundation, was performed at CNAO, Pavia. CNAO is the National Center of Oncological Hadrontherapy, one of the 6 structures in the world equipped with accelerators capable of generating beams of protons and carbon ions, generally used for the treatment of radio-resistant and non-operable tumors.
Ventricular arrhythmias are abnormal heartbeats that originate in the lower heart chambers, called ventricles. These types of arrhythmias causes the heart to beat too fast, which prevents oxygen-rich blood from circulating to the brain and body and may result in cardiac arrest.
A statement from CNAO and San Matteo reads, “The choice to use hadron therapy with protons, an advanced form of radiation therapy for the treatment of tumors, for the treatment of cardiac pathology was born from the need to combat a particularly aggressive form of ventricular arrhythmia that had not responded effectively to both traditional and more advanced treatments and which caused continuous and dangerous alterations of the heart rhythm in the patient.”
Proton beam is targeted, with a very reduced impact on the delicate surrounding tissues, on that part of the heart responsible for irregular heartbeats.
The patient was transferred to Pavia from a Milanese hospital where he was hospitalized for ventricular arrhythmias and repeated cardiac arrests.
“In this particularly serious case, a different intervention was necessary”, underlines Roberto Rordorf, head of the Arrhythmology Unit of the Cardiology of the Policlinico San Matteo, directed by Luigi Oltrona Visconti.
Although phototherapy radiotherapy has already been used experimentally. In rare cases to treat some forms of arrhythmia, this time it was chosen to proceed with protons which guarantee a much lower impact on the surrounding delicate tissues.
“Pavia’s intervention is the first in the world on humans and the first results are really encouraging. For this reason, together with the CNAO we are evaluating the feasibility of an experimental clinical study,” said Roberto Rordorf.
“For CNAO this is a completely new way”, adds Gianluca Vago, president of the National Center of Oncological Hadrontherapy, but it confirms the extraordinary potential of this form of radiotherapy even outside its application in the oncological field, a vocation for our center was born, and the spirit of full collaboration with the world of Italian and international care that animates it.
