Putting radiation to the test to heal irregular heartbeat

By LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Doctors are zapping the heart with radiation normally reserved for cancer in a bid to better treat a dangerous kind of irregular heartbeat. It’s highly experimental. But researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have reported dramatic success with small numbers of severely ill patients who’ve exhausted standard care, and other hospitals are cautiously trying it. Now the first rigorous study is about to get underway to tell if the approach really works well enough for more routine use. Researchers think the one-time dose may reprogram misfiring heart cells to control heartbeats more like younger, healthier cells do.