Impact of Localisa on Ablation Management

Abstract

The vast majority of conventional mapping techniques currently used involve the recording of electrical events from electrodes positioned at various intracardiac locations. This process requires catheter movement through multiple sites within the heart to obtain activation mapping and entrainment data at these places. Insight into the electrophysiological behavior of the heart is obtained by combining the information from the electrogram recording with anatomical information gathered from fluoroscopic images. Therefore, optimal positioning of catheters for electrophysiological studies and interventional procedures requires integration of a knowledge of cardiac anatomy and radiographic correlates of the main anatomic landmarks with their intracardiac electrograms [1]. But cardiac chambers and the catheters positioned inside them are three-dimensional structures represented by fluoroscopy in two-dimensional planes, and thereby we frequently misjudge the spatial relationships between them. By using sequential fluoroscopic views, we can try to determine more precisely the relative position of the catheters inside the heart chambers. Nevertheless, the processing of data to form an electrospatial representation of cardiac activation is a cumbersome task, highly dependent on the mental agility and memory of the operator.