Computational Modelling Of Radiofrequency Cardiac Ablation To Study The Effect Of Cooling On Lesion Parameters

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a technique used to treat cardiac arrhythmias. It creates lesions in the heart by creating thermal damage. Due to limitations associated with in vivo as well as in vitro studies, computational methods assist in further analysis of the problem by allowing for quicker and more diverse parametric studies and hence, a more thorough understanding of the physics involved. These computational models have been proven to be good representations of the process by accurately modelling the catheter with simplified geometry and boundary conditions. Although these studies have inconsistencies in material properties (due to the variation of thermal and mechanical properties in biological tissue) as well as different methods of creating the geometry and applying the boundary conditions, overall they are quite similar. The effects of esophageal cooling were investigated to understand its effect on the process. It was determined that using the standard model found within the literature, the esophageal cooling changed the lesion depth by less than 18%, while changing the maximum tissue temperature by as much as 13.4%.