For a patient who’d run out of options, the breakthrough wasn’t a new drug or a bigger procedure — it was a more precise picture.

You can only treat what you can see clearly.

For one patient with a life-threatening heart rhythm, that principle made all the difference.

When a 61-year-old patient arrived with a dangerous, recurring heart rhythm that had resisted every conventional treatment — including multiple conventional treatments over months — the path forward depended on seeing his heart with extraordinary precision.

That’s where our team came in.

Morton & Partners cardiothoracic radiologist and Partner Dr Tyrone Annor played a central role in a multidisciplinary first at Life Vincent Pallotti Hospital: the use of Stereotactic Arrhythmia Radiotherapy Ablation (STAR), a non-invasive technique that targets the scar tissue driving the rhythm disorder using precisely focused radiation.

The procedure is only possible when three specialist fields work as one — and advanced imaging sits at its core.

Dr Annor combined the electrophysiology team’s 3D electrical heart map with cardiac CT to build a highly detailed, sub-millimetre three-dimensional model of the patient’s abnormal heart tissue. He then converted that model into the precise two-dimensional targeting coordinates used to guide the radiation beams — working closely with cardiac electrophysiologist Dr Vinod Thomas, from CardioRythm, and radiation oncologist Dr Louis Kathan, from Kathan Oncology, who spearheaded the STAR procedure.

It is the imaging that turns a complex clinical problem into something a radiation beam can act on with confidence. Without an accurate map of where the abnormal tissue lies, precision treatment simply isn’t possible.

The outcome: following treatment, no further abnormal rhythm could be triggered. The patient remained stable, with no recurrence, and his condition improved.

This case is believed to be among the first in Africa to combine 3D electrical heart mapping with precision cardiac radiation planning. Conventional treatments remain the first-choice approach for most patients — but for the few who have exhausted them, this collaboration shows what becomes possible when South African imaging expertise is brought to the table.

Dr Thomas spoke about the procedure and the team behind it on CapeTalk .

Listen to the full interview here: https://www.primediaplus.com/health-imaging-helps-find-the-hidden-effect-of-stress-on-the-heart/