Relation between denaturation time measured by optical coherence reflectometry and thermal lesion depth during radiofrequency cardiac ablation: feasibility numerical study
Radiofrequency (RF) catheter ablation is a minimally invasive medical procedure used to thermally destroy the focus of cardiac arrhythmias. Novel optical techniques are now being integrated into RF catheters in order to detect the changes in tissue properties. Loss of birefringence due to fiber denaturation at around 70ºC is related to changes in accumulated phase retardation and can be measured by polarization-sensitive optical coherence reflectometry (PS-OCR). Since irreversible thermal lesions are produced when the tissue reaches 50ºC, our goal was to seek the mathematical relationship between both isotherms. ; This work was partially supported by the Spanish Government under the "Plan Estatal de Investigación,Desarrollo e Innovación Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad" Grant "TEC2014-52383-C3 (TEC2014-52383-C3-1-R)". A. González-Suárez has a Postdoctoral Grant"Juan de la Cierva-formación" (FJCI-2015-27202) sup-ported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria yCompetitividad. This study was partially presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Society for LaserMedicine and Surgery. A. González-Suárez received atravel grant from the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research.