What Is Ablation?

Ablation is a nonsurgical technique primarily used to pinpoint and correct heart arrhythmias. Arrhythmias are when your heartbeat is too fast, too slow or uncoordinated. Ablation can be used to treat common types of arrhythmia including: 

• Atrial tachycardia
• Atrial fibrillation 
• Atrial flutter

What conditions does ablation treat?

We mainly use ablation to treat heart issues, but we can also use it to treat certain types of tumors.

Learn more about conditions we treat with ablation.

Types of ablation treatments

Ablation has several variations, including techniques that use heat, cold and chemicals to treat arrhythmia. We will often do an ablation procedure in conjunction with an electrophysiological study (EPS). An EPS is a diagnostic test used to evaluate heart rhythms and to locate the source of an arrhythmia.

Some common types of ablation include:

• Alcohol septal ablation
• Catheter ablation
• Chemical ablation

Learn more about types of ablation.