Voltage-sensitive optical mapping for atrial fibrillation ablation treatment

In recent years radiofrequency energy sources have been utilized in patients with atrial fibrillation to ablate atrial tissue and restore normal sinus rhythm. Radiofrequency ablations significantly minimize time in surgery, and hence postoperative complications, but as yet do not duplicate the ablation transmurality achieved by "cut and sew" techniques. Studies of post-operative fibrillation recurrence attribute treatment failures to the lack of obtaining full lesion transmurality at the time of surgery. Unfortunately, no method or standard exists for validating in-vivo ablation transmurality. Using high-resolution optical mapping studies with Langendorff perfused heart preparations, we are able to correlate spatiotemporal electrical activity with ablation line transmurality, thus providing a means for validating ablation transmurality in order to quantify the type and number of ablation lines used in order to tailor ablation therapies to individual patient needs.