The tip is positioned inside the heart next to the abnormal heart tissue that is responsible for the tachycardia. This energy heats up and thus dries out the heart tissue that is within about 5 millimeters of the tip. After about 30 to 60 seconds of heating, this tissue is no longer alive and cannot cause tachycardia any more. Although the actual ablation takes only a minute, the procedure often takes 4 to 10 hours. The reason is that it is time-consuming to identify the exact tissue in the heart that is responsible for a tachycardia and to make sure that all of this tissue has been ablated completely.
Ablation is performed by specialists known as clinical cardiac electrophysiologists .
As noted above, two kinds of rhythms can sometimes be cured by radiofrequency ablation but often cannot be. Most electrophysiologists implant cardioverter-defibrillators in all of these patients because recurrence of the rhythm weeks or months after the ablation effort can prove fatal. Ablation for cure of atrial fibrillation is a very active research topic in the field of clinical cardiac electrophysiology. Some successes have been achieved, but it is not yet ready for routine clinical use. The cardiac rhythms that cannot be cured but whose symptoms can be improved by radiofrequency ablation include any of the supraventricular tachycardias, including atrial flutter and atrial fibrillation.