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A new Canadian approach to treating a common heart rhythm condition could be a game changer for patients suffering from atrial fibrillation or AFib.
AFib is considered the most common arrhythmia and occurs in the upper chambers of the heart.
Irregular heartbeats affect one to two percent of the general population, and can cause symptoms such as shortness of breath and fatigue, but can lead to severe consequences such as stroke or heart failure.
Fatigue caused Edmonton’s Jon Davies to suspect something was wrong.
“I used to climb mountains and play squash, then that quickly went away when I got into my early 50s,” he told Global News in an interview. “I just thought it was old age, having a desk job, and maybe not enough exercise.”
His wife, Nora, said he was often tired and slept a lot.
He was ultimately diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, but when it came to treatment options, he was shocked.
“They told me that my heart had enlarged to such an extent that it didn’t make sense for them to treat it surgically, so that’s when they said you’re going to stay on blood thinners,” Davies said.
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Until this year, he said he had to accept the “status quo,” adding that he got a second opinion with the same results.
People with AFib often receive treatment through medication or by what is known as “catheter ablation.”
“The patient is usually sedated or completely put to sleep and we put a small tube in the groin and we put the wire through the heart, across to the left side of the heart and what we’re trying to do is kill the tissue around the pulmonary veins,” said Dr. Paul Angaran, director of cardiac arrhythmias at St. Michael in Toronto.
The process involves creating a small scar in the area of the heart, according to the Mayo Clinic. During AFib, incorrect signals can cause the heart to beat irregularly. The scar prevents the erroneous signal from reaching its target.
“Usually we burn, so we use energy sources that overheat the tissue and sometimes we can use energy sources that freeze the tissue,” said Dr. Gianluigi Bisleri, director of robotic and minimally invasive cardiac surgery at St. Michael. “But either way, we create a scar that becomes permanent and stops the irregular heartbeat.”
But Angaran said not everyone with AFib will find such treatment effective.
Angaran joined Bisleri to develop a new approach to help people with AFib.
The result is a two-part robotic technique that uses ablation from outside the heart and then inside using a catheter technique.
“This allows us to not only use robotic technology that gives us more dexterity, more ability to reach and see the heart, but also to treat larger areas of the heart with ablation,” Bisleri said.
The use of minimally invasive robotic surgery and catheter technology is a first in Canada, Bisleri said.
Patients interested in the procedure should be referred to Bisleri and Angaran, but Bisleri and Angaran told Global News that while referrals are simple, awareness of their approach is not enough.
Patients need to wait several weeks or months between each procedure, and Angaran notes that doctors want patients’ external scars to heal before they proceed with internal procedures.
One of their first patients was Davies, who learned about the procedure by searching online.
Davies underwent the first part of the procedure, a robotic technique, in September and is expected to return to Toronto in the coming weeks for a catheter ablation.
“It’s nice to be able to take that diagnosis and redirect it in a more humane way, in a way that’s, you know, more respectful than the alternative,” he said.
Angaran told Global News that in patients with long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation, the long-term success rate with this approach can be as high as 70 to 80 percent.
—with files from Katherine Ward of Global News
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
