Arrhytmia ablation
Arrhytmia ablation is a technique that uses radiofrequency energy to destroy heart muscle cells that are conducting the electrical impulse in an anomalous way, and are the cause of arrhythmia.
The ablation is done using a catheter with an electrode (source of RF energy) on the tip after the identification of the cells that have to be destroyed.
Some trials demonstrate that magnetic guidance can be used to guide the catheter for this type of procedures with similar or better performance than manually guided catheter because of the higher stability.
Endocardial mapping
One of the application of catheter magnetic guidance is endocardial mapping. This is the reconstruction of the endocardial potential map to detect the propagation of the electric stimulus in the heart. The mapping is done by measuring the electrical field in different region of the heart with a catheter, that can be contact or no-contact. A schematic of a catheter for endocardial mapping is represented in the figure on the left.
The map are done with pseudo-colors (Figure on the right), usually red indicates region with abnormal electromechanical activity, purple and blue indicate regions that are working properly.
Endocardial map
Catheter for endocardial mapping