Cardiac tissue ablation with catheter-based microwave heating

The common condition of atrial fibrillation is often treated by cutting diseased cardiac tissue to disrupt abnormal electrical conduction pathways. Heating abnormal tissue with electromagnetic power provides a minimally invasive surgical alternative to treat these cardiac arrhythmias. Radio frequency ablation has become the method of choice of many physicians. Recently, microwave power has also been shown to have great therapeutic benefit in medical treatment requiring precise heating of biological tissue. Since microwave power tends to be deposited throughout the volume of biological media, microwave heating offers advantages over other heating modalities that tend to heat primarily the contacting surface. It is also possible to heat a deeper volume of tissue with more precise control using microwaves than with purely thermal conduction or RF electrode heating. Microwave Cardiac Ablation (MCA) is used to treat heart tissue that allows abnormal electrical conduction by heating it to the point of inactivation. Microwave antennas that fit within catheter systems can be positioned close to diseased tissue. Specialized antenna designs that unfurl from the catheter within the heart can then radiate specifically shaped fields, which overcome problems such as excessive surface heating at the contact point. The state of the art in MCA is reviewed in this paper and a novel catheter-based unfurling wide aperture antenna is described. This antenna consists of the centre conductor of a coaxial line, shaped into a spiral and insulated from blood and tissue by a non-conductive fluid filled balloon. Initially stretched straight inside a catheter for transluminal guiding, once in place at the cardiac target, the coiled spiral antenna is advanced into the inflated balloon. Power is applied in the range of 50-150 W at the reserved industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) frequency of 915 MHz for 30-90 s to create an irreversible lesion. The antenna is then retracted back into the catheter for removal. Simulated and experimental measurements on phantoms, in vitro animal organ tissue and living animals have shown that these microwave applicators deliver the intended therapeutic lesions that are both wider and deeper than those generated by RF ablation or other recently reported microwave applicators.