35 Power, lesion size index and oesophageal temperature alerts during atrial fibrillation ablation (PILOT-AF): a randomized study

Background: Oesophageal heating is a collateral effect of RadioFrequency (RF) catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF) on the left atrial (LA) posterior wall. It is attributed to conductive heat transfer from the ablation site, a time-dependant process. Lower powers are routinely used to prevent this damage, requiring a longer duration of RF applications to reach the target lesion size index (LSI, a recently introduced parameter to predict the RF lesion size and depth). We investigated whether the risk of oesophageal heating is reduced by use of higher powers for shorter times compared with lower powers for longer times.
Source: Europace - Category: Cardiology Source Type: research