What medications are used to treat atrial tachycardia?

What medications are used to treat atrial tachycardia?

Medications that are often used to treat atrial tachycardia include:

• Beta blockers: This type of medication can stop or slow down certain cell functions, especially in your heart. These can be more effective at treating arrhythmias caused by automaticity or triggered activity.
• Calcium channel blockers: These change the way your heart muscle cells use calcium. This can reduce how sensitive your heart muscle cells are to an electrical signal. These are also more effective with automaticity and triggered activity problems.
• Other arrhythmia medications: Depending on what caused the arrhythmia in the first place, other anti-arrhythmia medications may help. Your healthcare provider can offer options based on the risks, benefits and possible side effects.

Another common way to treat atrial tachycardia is ablation. This is where certain areas of the heart are treated to stop them from improperly conducting electricity. This is very helpful at stopping focal atrial tachycardia and can also stop reentry problems by blocking part of a faulty electrical circuit.

Ablation can be done using the following methods:

• Catheter ablation. These procedures start by inserting a device into a major blood vessel (usually near your groin). The device is then threaded up to your heart to treat the problem area. It can do this with either heat (radiofrequency ablation) or extreme cold (cryoablation). This type of procedure has a success rate of 90% or better.
• Surgical ablation. For patients whose problem isn’t fixable with catheter ablation, it may also be possible to do it using surgery. Surgical approaches use similar methods but access the heart more directly through an incision in your chest.