PADUCAH, Ky. (WSIL) -- Patients with irregular heartbeat have a new local option for treatment.
Baptist Health Paducah is the first hospital in the region to offer the next-generation WATCHMAN FLX device to patients with atrial fibrillation or AFib.
Cardiologists say it's safer for patients, less invasive and offers an alternative to blood thinners to prevent a potentially life-threatening stroke.
Cardiologists successfully implanted the device on four patients this week.
"Patients that we had before that we thought were probably too difficult to offer the device for or even try the device before or didn't get an appropriate fit for the device. We would plan on bringing those patients back in because we still think because we still think they would benefit the procedure and hopefully we'll have an increase success rate with this newer device," said Michael Faulkner.
Baptist Health Paducah was the first in the region to offer the original WATCHMAN device in 2018.
