I was browsing the New Scientist web site and came across this
(below).  I thought it might be relevant to at least one of your
current batch of lurgies.  The article came from:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991852

Cheers,
Tish
remove nobody to email

Radio waves reset jumpy hearts

12:00 29 January 02
Claire Ainsworth

People with hard-to-treat heartbeat disturbances could soon be cured
using high-intensity radio waves, say US researchers. Hakan Oral and
his team at the University of Michigan restored normal heart rhythm in
80 per cent of patients with a condition called intermittent atrial
fibrillation. This is a big improvement on existing treatments.

"This is very exciting, but we are still on a learning curve," said
Michael Henein, consultant cardiologist at the Royal Brompton hospital
in London. "We don't know the long-term outcome yet."

Atrial fibrillation affects millions of people worldwide, mainly those
over 70 years old. Normally, the contraction of the muscle in the two
upper chambers of the heart - the atria - is tightly coordinated by
electrical signals generated by pacemaker cells in an area called the
sinus.

But if these signals get jumbled, the muscle cells no longer contract
in unison. When this happens, the atria cannot pump blood out into the
lower chambers of the heart efficiently. The blood pools and stagnates
in the atria. It can then form clots, which can break off and cause
strokes.

Extra pacemakers

Atrial fibrillation can be caused by physical damage to the heart,
such as coronary heart disease. But in some patients, there is no
obvious damage. Instead, groups of heart cells inside the entrances to
the pulmonary veins somehow become extra pacemakers, throwing the
electrical signals in the heart into disarray.

Oral and his team based their trial on a technique pioneered by Michel
Haissaguerre at the Haut Leveque hospital in Bordeaux. They threaded a
catheter into the pulmonary veins of 70 patients. The catheter had a
ring-shaped tip that could detect electrical signals and help the team
track down the errant cells. The team then destroyed the cells around
three of the four pulmonary veins with high-intensity radio waves via
the catheter.

Existing treatments for atrial fibrillation involve drugs to calm the
electrical signals and blood-thinning drugs to combat clots. Doctors
can try "re-booting" the heart's rhythm by applying a pulse of
electricity to the patient's chest - a process called external
cardioversion. This works well, but up to half of all patients relapse
within a year.

Over 80 per cent of Oral patients had their fibrillation either cured
or improved. A year on, they are still doing well, and even improving,
says Oral.

But the technique was not so successful in patients whose fibrillation
had become chronic. Oral thinks that intermittent atrial fibrillation
can lead to permanent changes in the heart if left untreated. "It may
be important to intervene early," he says. More extensive trials of
the therapy are planned.

Journal reference: Circulation

12:00 29 January 02