Heart arrhythmia is a major worldwide public health problem, accounting for 15–20% of all deaths. Heart arrhythmias affect over 15 million people in Europe and North America. This number is expected to double in the next 50 years due to the aging population and lifestyle changes. At the moment, Catheter ablation is the current gold standard for heart arrhythmia treatment. Accordingly, the surgical procedure is performed by introducing a catheter under anaesthesia into the heart chambers, to ablate selected target regions by applying heat. This is an invasive procedure that requires patient hospitalization and a staff of 10 doctors. Moreover, it has a high risk of complications, such as bleeding, infection and damage to heart valves and blood vessels.

EBAMed developed Cardio-kit, a non-invasive medical device for heart arrhythmia treatment using proton therapy. Cardio-kit is a plug & play system that can be integrated into any existing proton therapy machine. It enables monitoring of heart movements in real-time, and automatically adjust the Stop/Go signal to the proton therapy machine based on the cardiac cycle in which to intervene. Cardio-kit ensures an accurate, effective and safe treatment of the moving target within the heart at the right time. In this way, Cardio-kit facilitates an out-patient procedure, as it does not require any hospitalization or sedation. The procedure is therefore quick, safe, painless and suitable for any age and health condition patient with no side-effects.