Introduction: The delivery of radiofrequency (RF) energy through conventional catheter electrodes is often associated with coagulation necrosis at the tissue-electrode interface, with resultant impedance rise and limited lesion size. This study was performed to examine the effects of catheter tip cooling during RF delivery, to test the hypothesis that such cooling would decrease the likelihood if impedance rise and allow the creation of larger endomyocardial lesions.
Methods and results: The experiments were performed in eight open chest, anesthetized sheep. RF lesions were created within both ventricular chambers of each animal through a catheter tip that could be cooled with a saline perfusate. Assignment of cooled versus noncooled RF delivery to either ventricle was alternated from one animal to the next. In each set of experiments, lesion volumes relative to the mode of RF delivery were compared. The mean power delivered via the cooled electrode (22.04 +/- 4.51 W) was significantly higher than that delivered via the noncooled electrode (6.10 +/- 2.47 W; P < 0.001). The mean duration of RF delivery was 42.7 +/- 11.2 sec for noncooled lesions versus 49.2 +/- 6.8 sec for cooled lesions (P < 0.01). Mean lesion volume was 436.07 +/- 177.00 mm3 for noncooled RF delivery versus 1247.78 +/- 520.51 mm3 for cooled RF delivery (P < 0.001). This significantly larger lesion size with cooled RF delivery was associated with no instance of impedance rise in 27 attempts versus 11 impedance rises in 28 attempts with noncooled RF (P < 0.001).
Conclusions: Delivery of RF energy through a cooled catheter tip allows the creation of larger endomyocardial lesions by limiting the occurrence of impedance rise despite the delivery of greater energy. These observations suggest that, under certain conditions, resistive tissue heating at a distance from the site of current delivery may play an important role in RF ablation therapy.