Treatment of cardiac arrhythmia utilizing ultrasound

Abstract

A noninvasive or minimally invasive treatment of cardiac arrhythmia such as supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmias, specifically atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia, by treating the tissue with heat produced by ultrasound, including High Intensity Focused Ultrasound or HIFU, emitted without respect to the timing or phase of the cardiac cycle, intended to have a biological and / or therapeutic effect, so as to interrupt or remodel the electrical substrate in the tissue area that supports arrhythmia.

Description

[0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Patent Application 10 / 921715, filed August 19, 2004, which claims U.S. Provisional Patent Application 60 / 560089, filed April 7, 2004, and U.S. Priority of provisional patent application 60 / 500067. technical field [0002] The present invention relates to the non-invasive or minimally invasive treatment of cardiac arrhythmias such as supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmias. Background technique [0003] Clinically significant supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmias affect approximately 2.5-3 million individuals in the United States each year. In the United States, more than 2,000,000 and 500,000 new cases of atrial fibrillation (AF) and atrial flutter occur each year, respectively. In the United States, atrial fibrillation is thought to cause 75,000 ischemic attacks each year at an estimated cost of $44 billion. About 8 percent of people over the age of 65 have atrial arrhythmias. Each year, AF is responsi...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0013] 1. Risk of stroke and airflow embolism due to catheter movement in the left atrium

[0014] 2. Significant increase in operative time due to technical difficulties in completing pulmonary vein isolation

[0015] 3. Cardiac perforation from swimming mapping and ablation catheters in the parenchyma of the left atrium when the patient is fully anticoagulated

[0018] 6. In the case of "surgical maze" surgery, hemorrhage related to cardiothoracic surgery, patient discomfort and pain, infection, heart failure precipitation reaction and prolonged hospitalization

However, targeting only during diastole does not achieve thermal dose across the entire region of interest (RI0) to induce degeneration

Images