13th International Congress
THE "NEW FRONTIERS"
OF ARRHYTHMIAS 1998

January 24-31, 1998
Marilleva, Trento, Italy

RT-109

Use of intracardiac echocardiography during mapping and ablation of atrial arrhythmias

Jonathan M. Kalman, Jeffrey E. Olgin*, Martin R. Karch**; Michael D. Lesh**.
Department of Cardiology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, Section of Cardiac Electrophysiology,
*Krannert Research Institute, Indianapolis, Indiana,
**Department of Medicine and Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco, USA

Introduction

Intracardiac echocardiography is emerging as a potentially useful tool during radiofrequency ablation procedures. There are a number of potential benefits of direct endocardial visualization during radiofrequency ablation including: 1) precise anatomic localization of the ablation catheter tip in relation to important endocardial structures which cannot be visualized with fluoroscopy; 2) reduction in fluoroscopy time; 3) evaluation of catheter tip tissue contact; 4) confirmation of lesion formation and identification of lesion size and continuity; 5) immediate identification of complications and 6) as a research tool to help in understanding the critical role played by specific endocardial structures in arrhythmogenesis. This article will briefly review existing data and speculate as to possible future roles for intracardiac echocardiography in interventional electrophysiology.

Key Words

Radio frequency catheter ablation of tachyarrhythmias
atrial arrhythmias, mapping - ablation, intracardiac echocardiography, assessement of anatomic lesions, R