That's the way supraventricular tachycardia, or SVT, can plague kids. The attacks can be frightening, so much so that they inhibit a child from participating in normal activities. But without being able to capture the event on standard monitoring equipment, doctors can't recommend treatment to stop the attacks. If the patient does suffer from SVT, Kanter will be able to trigger an attack by prompting premature beats. And if SVT is the problem, Kanter can treat it with drugs or in the cath lab with radio frequency ablation, a procedure that permanently disrupts the cardiac short circuit causing the irregular rhythm.
Directors can use film to tell a story that tugs at our heart strings.
But things have changed at Duke University Medical Center. Duke physicians perform close to 6,000 catheterizations each year, and over the past decade, the cath labs have moved from recording all catheterization and angioplasty procedures on film to displaying them digitally, which improved the quality of the image. Now, given computer advances, Duke has worked with industry computer experts to create a system whereby all digital cath records can be archived. The system doesn't even blink at the 1.2 terabytes it takes to store a year's worth of patient records, according to Dr. Michael Sketch, director of the interventional cath lab at Duke. Time is an important issue, Sketch says.