Live - Real Time - Heart Surgery Webcast

Saturday, August 21, 2004 - 7:30am EST

St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Florida plans to show a breakthrough cardiology procedure live over the Internet.
  
The live webcast will feature a minimally invasive surgery in which a female patient is treated for atrial fibrillation, a condition that causes her heart to flutter rapidly without warning.

She will be undergo a MicroMaze procedure, in which a surgeon uses a tiny camera inserted through a patient's side and then uses a laser on the heart muscle to build scar tissue, in an effort to correct an abnormal rhythm.

St. Joseph's said it is the first hospital in the country to participate in a clinical trial of MicroMaze, which allows surgeons to treat atrial fibrillation without open-heart surgery.

The live webcast will begin at 9 a.m., August 21, 2004.

Click here to watch the live webcast.