TactiCath
BIOTRONIK has an unsurpassed legacy of providing quality therapy solutions. We cultivate expertise in understanding the challenges electrophysiologists face so that we can provide state-of-the-art technology with precise performance and highly reliable results.
TactiCath offers an optical force sensor, objective contact force measurement and precise force information for increased ablation efficacy and patient safety.
Specificatii
- Optical force sensor resolution of 1 gram
- Objective tip-to-tissue contact force measurement
- Precise lateral and axial force information
- At the same RF power, lesion depth and lesion volume increase linearly with contact force
AF ablation is an unfinished puzzle
The chronic success rate is 50–70 % in paroxysmal AF ablation. Recurrent AF is overwhelmingly associated with PV electrical reconnection rather than new foci or non-targeted substrate, and ablation procedures are often length in duration. Patient safety is still a concern in AF ablation, with 4.5% major complications and 1.3% tamponade. There are also the risks of steam pops and atrioesophageal fistula.
One of the challenges is that AF ablation procedures are frequently performed at too low or too excessive force.
- 12 % of ablations in LA performed with contact forces less than 5 g
- 82% of patients (28/34) had contact forces greater 100 g applied
- 41 % of patients (14/34) had more than 10 occurences of 100 g
Furthermore, impedance is a poor predictor of contact force. Indirect measures currently used to assess catheter tip-to-tissue contact and tactile feedback are not reliable. Studies have shown that experienced blinded operators classifying the contact in the LA as “good” had a wide variability in terms of actual contact force.
Contact Force is the last missing piece of the puzzle
Contact force is one of the main predictors for lesion size - at the same RF power, lesion depth and lesion volume increase linearly.