WPW Shows up on EKG after ablation?

[ebisky]

Hello All,

I had an ablation for WPW, but it was only a partial ablation(wasn't able to ablate the entire pathway) due to the proximity to my AV node. The surgery was considered a success because the arrhythmia could not be started after the partial ablation during the EP study. 4 months or so after the surgery the EKG showed no sign of WPW. About 10 months after the surgery it is back on the EKG. My EP doc said that due to only a partial ablation the pathway may still be able to conduct electricity for the EKG, but should not be able to re-introduce the WPW arrhythmia. He basically said that I still have the pathway, but not WPW. My doc actually said that the delta wave may show up on the ekg at random, but it was a good sign that it wasn't there after the 4 months when I had an EKG last.

Just wondering if there are others out there that still have the delta wave on their EKG after ablation and what their progress has been like.

Thanks!

[grendslori]

They kept going back due to symptoms and they never found another WPW track once the open heart surgery was done.

[ebisky]

So sorry to hear about all of your daughter's surgeries. Did she go back for the EP's because of the EKG or because she was having symptoms? Did they actually find WPW pathways during the EP study or did they keep going back in because of the EKG readings?

[grendslori]

I don't know about the "cardiac memory" thing.......they tend to talk more about that as a cellular memory in transplant patients. I can tell you that if you havd your ablation done in the cath lab, it is NOT Surgery; it is an ablation only which is a proceedure. My daughter had an open-heart surgery done in Houston when they were the only place in the world who was actually doing electrical surgeries on the heart. She was in the hospital for 10 days following her surgery for WPW. Immediately after her surgery her WPW was gone off of the EKG (no short P-R complex, no Delta Wave, no wide Q-R-S segment). Within 4 weeks it was all back. EP Studies were done and showed that the WPW no longer existed. Several years later and after several more cath ablations, she once again cleared her EKG and within hours, the EKG returned back to the WPW pattern. Houston's explaination after: " Good Luck trying to convince any doctor she doesn't have WPW!" was that she had developed a Maheim Fiber in the ventricle. The open heart surgery, combiuned with a LBBB and a RBBB and Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy with the new Maheim Fiber looks exactly like a WPW on the EKG. (the delta wave and short P-R complex were a result of where the original ablation took place, the wide Q-R-S was from the HCM and Maheim Fiber; combined, it looks like the WPW has returned.)    

[demps123]

Found this on Wiki. Hope it is some help. It does not have alot of information but you may beable to get something out of it.

Cardiac memory is a process where the ECG does not immediately change to back to baseline after a period of arrhythmia or pacing. Mostly altered T waves are seen on the ECG. Cardiac memory is frequently induced by ventricular pacing or arrhythmias and historically has been considered of minor relevance to medical practice, although it is debated whether this is justified.[1] The T-wave changes that occur during cardiac memory can resemble the inversions that occur after myocardial infarction.

[ebisky]

Hard to find info about cardiac memory. Most of the info on it are medical papers ;)

Anyways, it seems to me that cardiac memory basically lasts 3 months or so after the ablation, but for most people it goes away. I'm almost a year after the ablation and still have signs on the EKG. Do you have info you can share w/me specific to situations where cardiac memory persists more than 6 months after an ablation?

Thanks!

[ebisky]

Hi,

Do you have any posts you can share? I can't seem to find any related experiences using the search function.

Thanks!

[tom_h]

I believe what you're seeing could be a phenomenom called Cardiac Memory.  There is information on many sites regarding it.

[Skippy80]

There are people on here (or at least here for a month) who have had similar things happen but with SVT's etc where they had partial ablations due to closeness to the pacemakers

they report having brief 5-10 beats of svt every now and then but the pathway is not sustaining

good luck with your quest to find answers it is very specific so might be hard