INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Atrial fibrillation, or AFib is the most common type of heart arrhythmia. It’s estimated 12 million people in the U.S. are living with it. If not treated, it can lead to blood clots and stroke. The first line of treatment is medications, then ablation, where the extreme heat or cold targets misfiring heart cells. But both treatments come with risks and side effects.

Now, a new type of procedure, recently approved by the FDA, is helping get hearts back on beat.

Michael Copley, with his dog Bo, spends a lot time perfecting his pickleball game.

“It’s a great combination of fun and competitiveness,” he said.

But Michael, a man who could volley for hours, started to become winded just going up a flight of stairs.

“I took my pulse and it was fast. And so that was something new for me,” he told Ivanhoe.

That was his first sign of AFib. After a failed traditional ablation procedure, Michael was one of the first to have Farapulse — pulse field ablation.

“It’s like a smart bomb for heart muscle cells,” explained Dr. Douglas Gibson, MD, a cardiologist & electrophysiologist at Scripps Clinic.

He says unlike thermal ablation that uses a catheter to deliver extreme heat or cold to zap heart cells back into rhythm, Farapulse uses electrical signals.

“The Farapulse is non-thermal. It doesn’t heat up or freeze tissue. We deliver electric fields at the tissue, and the way it kills is by opening up pores and cell membranes,” Gibson said.

Killing the cell from the inside out — with less risk of damaging surrounding tissue and cells.

“When you treat a piece of heart muscle with this technology, just the cardiac cells are deleted, the nerves, the blood vessels, the esophagus, which sits right behind the heart, all of that is untouchable,” Gibson said.

And now, a year after the procedure — Michael is back on the court — AFib free.

For the first time, recent studies have shown 100% of patients are AFib free 90 days after the procedure. Compare that to thermal ablation that works in about 70% of the patients. Gibson said he’s never seen anything like that in his career.

This story was created from a script aired on WISH-TV. Health Spotlight is presented by Community Health Network.