Young patient avoids pacemaker thanks to rare heart procedure in Almaty

The City Cardiology Center in Almaty has successfully performed a cardioneuroablation — a unique, minimally invasive procedure that allows for heart rhythm restoration without the need to implant a pacemaker, according to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Health.
A 22-year-old man came to the center with complaints of dizziness and episodes of syncope. Examination revealed that he suffered from an aberrant rhythm unrelated to any organic heart disease.
Artur Abdymomunov, head of the arrhythmology department, performed the procedure. He explained that previously, patients with such symptoms typically required pacemaker implantation — a solution that significantly restricted their lifestyles, which is particularly inconvenient for young individuals.
«Today, thanks to advances in medicine, we can eliminate the cause of bradycardia [a type of cardiac rhythm disorder] without using implantable devices, but by precisely targeting areas of the heart responsible for the excessive influence on the autonomic nervous system,» Abdymomunov said.
This diagnosis is commonly found among young people, athletes and individuals with increased parasympathetic tone. In such cases, the heart is anatomically healthy, but its contraction rate decreases due to a kind of «retuning» by autonomic regulation.
The patient is in stable condition following the procedure and remains under medical supervision. This was the center’s first experience with this type of intervention.
Other medical professionals in Almaty also stood out in late April, when they successfully performed a complex neck surgery on a newborn boy suffering from respiratory and cardiac failure.
Earlier this month, the country’s Ministry of Health proposed a new article to the Criminal Code that would introduce measures to combat assault and threats against healthcare professionals — with prison terms of up to 15 years. The initiative follows recent incidents in hospitals, including one in Kostanay on July 17, when a surgeon was punched by a patient, causing loss of consciousness.