Relation between denaturation time measured by optical coherence reflectometry and thermal lesion depth during radiofrequency cardiac ablation: feasibility numerical study

Abstract

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.