This week, the HonorHealth Research Institute in Scottsdale used a new technology to treat atrial fibrillation (Afib).

Afib is a condition in which the heart can start beating rapidly out of control, at an irregular pace and could lead to heart failure or stroke. It’s also the most common electrical disturbance in the heart.

This week, Dr. Rahul Doshi performed one of the nation’s first procedures to control Afib using a new type of catheter that can deliver two different types of electrical energy to target a specific area of the heart.

“We’re positioning a catheter in an area of the heart that is responsible for this abnormal heart rhythm and essentially we are killing that area or buzzing or burning or whatever you wanna call it that area that’s causing a problem," Doshi said.

The procedure doesn’t harm any of the heart’s healthy tissue and destroying the damaged tissue helps restore the heart’s regular rhythm.

"This catheter technology allow us to both have the flexibility of using this new energy source (pulse field ablation) together with our old energy source (radiofrequency ablation), but also allowing us to deliver this energy discretely instead of over a large area," Doshi said. "So we can tailor the particular therapy for a patient.”

The Feb. 11 procedure is the first in the Western U.S. among the clinical trial’s 32 sites nationwide.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, AFib affects more than 10 million Americans, or nearly 4.5% of the adult U.S. population, leading annually to more than 450,000 hospitalizations and contributing to nearly 158,000 deaths.