Electrophysiology therapy catheter
A mapping catheter is positioned in a heart chamber, and active electrode sites are activated to impose an electric field within the chamber. The blood volume and wall motion modulates the electric field, which is detected by passive electrode sites on the preferred catheter. Electrophysiology measurements, as well as geometry measurements, are taken from the passive electrodes and used to display a map of intrinsic heart activity.
This is a Divisional Application of U.S. Ser. No. 09/005,105, filed Jan. 9, 1998, entitled “Electrophysiology Mapping System;” which was a Continuation-In-Part of U.S. Ser. No. 08/387,832, officially filed May 26, 1995 and entitled “Endocardial Mapping System and Catheter Probe”; which is a national stage application based upon international application PCT/US93/09015, filed Sep. 23, 1993; which in turn is a Continuation-In-Part of both U.S. Ser. No. 07/950,448, filed Sep. 23, 1992 (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,291,549) and U.S. Ser. No. 07/949,690, also filed Sep. 23, 1992 (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,311,866). The parent application, Ser. No. 08/387,832, is incorporated by reference herein.
FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThe parent invention relates to electrophysiology apparatus which is used to measure and to visualize electrical activity occurring in a patient's heart. The system can display both a visual map of the underlying electrical activity originating in a chamber of a patient's heart and the location of a therapy catheter located within a heart chamber. The electrophysiology apparatus includes several subsystems including: a therapy catheter system, a measurement catheter system and a computer based signal acquisition, control and display system.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONMany cardiac tachyarrhythmias are caused by conduction defects which interfere with the normal propagation of electrical signals in a patient's heart. These arrhythmias may be treated electrically, pharmacologically or surgically. The optimal therapeutic approach to treat a particular tachyarrhythmia depends upon the nature and location of the underlying conduction defect. For this reason electrophysiologic mapping is used to explore the electrical activity of the heart during a tachyarrhythmic episode. The typical electrophysiologic mapping procedure involves positioning an electrode system within the heart. Electrical measurements are made which reveal the electrical propagation of activity in the heart. If ablation is the indicated therapy then a therapy catheter is positioned at the desired location within the heart and energy is delivered to the therapy catheter to ablate the tissue.
There are numerous problems associated with these electrophysiologic diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. First the testing goes on within a beating heart. The motion of the diagnostic catheter and treatment catheter can injure the heart and provoke bouts of arrhythmia which interfere with the collection of diagnostic information. During the delivery of ablation therapy it is common to use fluoroscopic equipment to visualize the location of the catheters. Many physicians are concerned about routine occupational exposure to X-rays. In addition, the traditional mapping techniques do not provide a high resolution view of the electrical activity of the heart which makes it difficult to precisely locate the source of the arrhythmia.
SUMMARYThe electrophysiology apparatus of the invention is partitioned into several interconnected subsystems. The measurement catheter system introduces a modulated electric field into the heart chamber. The blood volume and the moving heart wall surface modify the applied electric field. Electrode sites within the heart chamber passively monitor the modifications to the field and a dynamic representation of the location of the interior wall of the heart is developed for display to the physician. Electrophysiologic signals generated by the heart itself are also measured at electrode sites within the heart and these signals are low pass filtered and displayed along with the dynamic wall representation. This composite dynamic electrophysiologic map may be displayed and used to diagnose the underlying arrhythmia.
A therapy catheter system can also be introduced into the heart chamber. A modulated electrical field delivered to an electrode on this therapy catheter can be used to show the location of the therapy catheter within the heart. The therapy catheter location can be displayed on the dynamic electrophysiologic map in real time along with the other diagnostic information. Thus the therapy catheter location can be displayed along with the intrinsic or provoked electrical activity of the heart to show the relative position of the therapy catheter tip to the electrical activity originating within the heart itself. Consequently the dynamic electrophysiology map can be used by the physician to guide the therapy catheter to any desired location within the heart.
The dynamic electrophysiologic map is produced in a step-wise process. First,the interior shape of the heart is determined. This information is derived from a sequence of geometric measurements related to the modulation of the applied electric field. Knowledge of the dynamic shape of the heart is used to generate a representation of the interior surface of the heart.
Next, the intrinsic electrical activity of the heart is measured. The signals of physiologic origin are passively detected and processed such that the magnitude of the potentials on the wall surface may be displayed on the wall surface representation. The measured electrical activity may be displayed on the wall surface representation in any of a variety of formats. Finally, a location current may be delivered to a therapy catheter within the same chamber. The potential sensed from this current may be processed to determine the relative or absolute location of the therapy catheter within the chamber.
These various processes can occur sequentially or simultaneously several hundred times a second to give a continuous image of heart activity and the location of the therapy device.
An exemplary and illustrative form of the invention is shown in the drawings and identical reference numerals refer to equivalent structure throughout.
The monitoring catheter 14 has a proximal end 20 which may be manipulated by the attending physician, and a distal end 22 which carries a monitoring catheter electrode set 44. In general the distal end 22 of the monitoring catheter 14 will be relatively small and will float freely in the heart chamber. The therapy catheter 18 has a distal end 24 which carries a therapy catheter electrode set 46. The therapy catheter also has proximal end 26 which can be manipulated by the attending physician.
The electrode sets located on the catheters are coupled to an interface system 28, through appropriate cables. The cable 30 connects the monitoring catheter electrode set 44 to the interface system 28 while cable 32 connects the therapy catheter electrode set 46 to the interface system 28. The interface system 28 contains a number of subsystems which are controlled by a computer 34. The data collected by the interface system 28 is manipulated by the computer 34 and displayed on a display device 36. Surface electrodes represented by electrode 40 may also be coupled to the electrophysiology apparatus 10 for several purposes via an appropriate cable 42. A therapy generator 38 is connected to the therapy catheter electrode 60 and to the therapy surface ground 70, through the interface system 28. The skin surface electrode cable 42 couples the ECG surface electrodes 74 to the ECG system 39, which may be a subsystem of interface system 28.
The high pass section 56 of the signal conditioner extracts the induced field signals as modulated by the blood volume and the changing position of the chamber walls 125. First, the signals are amplified with a gain of approximately 500 from passive electrodes 48 with amplifier 151. Next, the signals are high pass filtered at roughly 1200 Hz by filter 153. Then the 4800 Hz signal is extracted by demodulator 155. Finally, the individual signals are converted to digital format by the analog to digital converter 157 before being sent to the computer 34.
The low pass section 58 of the signal conditioner 50 extracts physiologic signals. First, signal drift is reduced with a 0.01 Hz high pass filter 143. Next, a programmable gain amplifier 145 amplifies the signals. Then a low pass filter 147 removes extraneous high frequency noise and the signal from the induced field. Finally, the physiologic signals are converted to digital format by the analog to digital converter 149 before being sent to the computer 34.
The therapy catheter electrode set 46 includes at least one therapy delivery electrode 60, and preferably one or more monitoring electrodes 62, and one or more locator electrodes 68. The therapy delivery electrode 60 cooperates with the ground electrode 70, which is generally a skin patch electrode, to deliver ablation energy to the heart. These electrodes are coupled to the ablation energy generator 38 which is shown as an RF current source. A locator electrode 68 is provided which is preferably proximate the delivery electrode 60, but can be a separate electrode site located near the distal end 24 of the therapy catheter 18. This electrode site is coupled with an active electrode 52 through a switch 59 to the signal generator 54. In use, the electric field coupled to the therapy catheter 18 permits the physician to track and visualize the location of the locator electrode 68 on the display device 36. The therapy catheter electrode set 46 can also be used to monitor the physiologic signals generated at the chamber wall 125 by a low pass signal conditioner 141 which is similar to the low pass section 58 of the signal conditioner 50. These digitized signals are then sent to the computer 34.
At least one electrode pair 119 of surface electrodes 40 are also coupled to the signal generator 54 through switch 59. Each electrode 89 and 115 are placed opposite each other on the body surface with the heart 16 in-between them. The induced field is sensed by passive electrodes 48 and conditioned by the high pass section 56 of the signal conditioner 50. This field helps the computer 34 align or orient the passive electrodes 48 to the body for better visualization of the heart on the monitor 36.
The ECG subsystem 39 accepts signals from standard ECG skin electrodes 74. It also contains a low pass section similar to the low pass section 58 of signal conditioner 50. In general, the passive electrode set 48 and active electrode set 52 will reside on a single catheter, however it should be recognized that other locations and geometries are suitable as well. Both basket and balloon devices are particularly well suited to this application.
Returning to
The computer 34 operates under the control of a stored program which implements several control functions and further displays data on a display device 36. The principal software processes are the wall surface generation process (WSGP); the body orientation generation process (BOGP); the wall electrogram generation process (WEGP); the site electrogram generation process (SEGP); and the movable electrode location process (MELP).
Wall Surface Generation ProcessIn a system as shown as the basket in
In a system as shown in
The passive electrodes 48 on the balloon catheter 94 can be positioned in rows 123 and columns 121 with the columns in a line from the top of the balloon 96 near active electrode 92 to the bottom of the balloon 96 near active electrode 98. In a preferred embodiment three configurations are possible: 8 rows and 8 columns, 7 rows and 9 columns, and 6 rows and 10 columns. In each such embodiment the measurements from any row 123 are treated independently. Using the 8 row, 8 column embodiment as an example, 8 measurements of distance are taken for any selected row of electrodes, giving a total of 64 measurements.
where DA is the desired distance 129 and c0 through c5 are optimized parameters. A typical vector of these parameters is (c0, c1, c2, c3, c4, c5)=(3.26, −0.152, −0.124, −0.087, −0.078, −0.066).
Once the distance 129 in the direction of electrode 131 is determined then the computation can be redone by shifting this direction clockwise one electrode, relabeling electrodes A through H and solving the above equation again. Once the distances for this row of electrodes 123 are determined then the next row distances are determined in the same way until the distances at all 64 electrodes are determined.
Returning to
There are numerous display formats or images which can be used to present the dynamic endocardial wall surface to the physician. It appears that one of the most useful is to unfold the endocardial surface and project it onto a plane. Wire grid shapes representing a perspective view of the interior of the heart chamber are useful as well. It appears that each individual physician will develop preferences with respect to preferred output image formats. In general, different views of the endocardial surface will be available or may be used for diagnosis of arrythmia and the delivery of therapy. One distinct advantage of the present invention is that the image of the heart wall is not static or artificial. In this system the image is a measured property of the heart wall, and is displayed in motion.
At step 104 a regression analysis is performed which creates a vector which lines up with the field generated in step 103. This regression method is the same whether a basket catheter as shown in
b=Σxy/Σx2
where “X” is the array of electrode locations, “Y” is the array of measured voltages and “b” is the orientation vector. If more than one pair of skin electrodes are used then an orthogonal set of orientation vectors can be created and any rotation of the monitoring catheter 14 relative to the body 12 can be detected.
In step 105 the information on the location of the chamber walls 125 from the WSGP 109 can be used to create a three dimensional model of the heart 16 chamber as seen in
In the case of a basket system as seen in
In the case of a balloon system as seen in
In the case of a basket system as seen in
In the case of the balloon system as seen in
At step 66, the potentials are projected on to the sites on the chamber wall specified in step 65. In the case of a basket system as seen in
In case of a balloon system as seen in
For the boundary element method in the mapping system of the invention, the voltage is measured at the passive electrodes 48 on the probe or balloon catheter 94. From the voltage at the electrodes on the probe and the knowledge that the probe is nonconducting, the voltage and normal current at a previously selected set of nodes on the endocardial surface 125 are determined by the boundary element method in the following manner.
It is known that the voltage in the blood pool between the probe and the endocardium satisfies Laplace's equation that states that the net current flow across any specific boundary is zero. To find the voltage and/or normal current on the endocardium, one must find the solution of Laplace's equation in the blood pool and calculate the values of this solution on the endocardium. Standard finite element and finite difference methods can be used to find the solution to Laplace's equation, but they have large computational overhead for generating and keeping track of a three-dimensional grid in the whole blood pool. In the mapping system of the invention, Laplace's equation is solved by the boundary element method, a specialized finite element method that permits one to restrict the calculations to the two-dimensional probe and endocardial surfaces (and not have to deal with calculations over the blood pool between these two surfaces). In order to create an accurate map of the endocardial voltage and/or normal current based on the voltage information from a limited number of electrodes on the probe, the system uses a higher-order version of the boundary element method. This system currently uses bicubic splines to represent the probe and endocardial surfaces and bilinear elements and bicubic splines to represent the voltage and the normal current on these surfaces.
The boundary element method consists of creating and solving a set of linear equations for the voltage and the normal current on the endocardium based on the voltage measurements at the electrodes on the probe. Each of the elements in the matrices that are involved in this set consists of two-dimensional integrals, which are calculated by numerical and analytical integration.
Using Laplace's equation with data given on the probe is a so-called “ill-posed” problem. For such problems, all solution procedures, including the boundary element method, are ill conditioned, that is, small errors in the measured voltage on the probe surface can result in large errors in the calculated voltage and/or normal current on the endocardium. To minimize the errors on the endocardium, options for regularization or constraints have been included in the software code. For example: the user can choose parameters that cause the code to add equations for known or expected values of the voltage and/or normal current on the endocardium. This capability is often but not exclusively used to add equations that take into account the voltage and/or normal current of the map of the previous instant(s) in time (the previous “frame(s)”). This process uses historical data from the previous frame to constrain the values subsequently computed.
The solution of the set of the boundary element equations and regularizing equations (if any) is normally accomplished by singular value decomposition but there is an option to solve the linear system by decomposition (Gaussian elimination) or direct or inherent methods. When singular value decomposition is used, there is an option to turn off the influence of high-frequency errors (that is, do a type of regularization) by setting various small singular values to zero, the result of which can be an increase in the accuracy of the calculated voltage and normal current on the endocardium.
In block 67, a large number of points are calculated on the three-dimensional chamber surface 125. In the case of a basket catheter as seen in
In block 69 a representation of the electrical potentials on the surface 125 are used to display the patterns. These types of displays include color maps, maps of iso-potential lines, maps of potential gradient lines and others. The electro-physiologic information is reconstructed on the dynamic wall surface 125. In general the measured electrical activity is positioned by the WSGP at the exact location which gives rise to the activity. The high resolution of the system creates an enormous amount of information to display. Several techniques may be used to display this information to the physician. For example the electrogram data can be shown in false color gray-scale on a two dimensional wall surface representation. In this instance areas of equal potential areas are shown in the same color. Also a vectorized display of data can be shown on a wire grid as shown in
The false color and vectorized display images may direct the physician to specific sites on the endocardial surface for further exploration. The system may allow the physician to “zoom” in on an area to show the electrical activity in greater detail. Also the physician may select a site on the endocardial wall 125 and display a traditional time series electrogram 99 originating at that site.
Movable Electrode Location ProcessThe first data set is acquired by driving the current carrier from the location electrode 68 to a first sink or active electrode as typified by electrode 98. This electrode is at a known location on the body of the monitoring catheter 14 relative to the array of passive electrodes 48. The location of this first sink electrode is ideally displaced distally from the centroid 127 of the array of electrodes by at least 25 millimeters. A second data set is then acquired by driving the current from the location electrode 68 to a second active electrode 92, located ideally at least 25 millimeters proximally from the centroid 127 of the array of electrodes.
The location algorithm is performed by minimizing the following equation:
Where n is the number of array electrodes, where k, b1 and b2 are fitting parameters, Vpi are the potentials measured from each ith electrode 72, Ri is a vector from the origin (centroid of the array of electrodes 96) to the ith probe electrode 72, RL is the “location vector”, or three dimensional location to be solved for in the minimization, and Rs1, Rs2 are the location vectors of the active sink electrodes (eg. 92 and 98) which are known at locations on the axis of the array of passive electrodes 48.
Additional data sets could be incorporated, following the same logic as above. Each additional squared parenthetical term requires the probe data set Vpi, another ‘b’ fitting term, and the particular active sink electrode 52 vector Rs used during the acquisition of that data set. If the sink electrode 52 is far enough away, for example using a right leg patch electrode, the fourth term in the squared expression for that data set may be deleted as Rs becomes very large.
It is also noted that the method does not require two data sets. The first squared expression in the above expression (requiring only data set Vpi1) may be sufficiently accurate.
The non-linear least squares minimization may be performed on the above summation by any of several well-known methods. The Levenberg-Marquardt method has been used in practice to accomplish this with efficient and robust results. Nominal values for k and b are 70 and 0 respectively, when normalizing the potential values obtained as if the current source were 1 ampere. The number of parameters in the minimization for the above expression are six: k, b1, b2, and the x, y, and z coordinates of vector RL (assuming a Cartesian coordinate system with origin at the center of the array of electrodes 96).
At step 21 a model of the heart 16 chamber wall is generated from the information provided from the WSGP 25. Such a model can be represented on a display 36 in a manner typified in
In step 23 this geometry is updated repeatedly to provide a dynamic view of the chamber, the monitoring catheter 18, along with a representation of the distal end 24 of the therapy catheter 18. If this is then combined with the electrical potentials generated by the WEGP, the therapy catheter can be moved to an electrical site of interest represented by a point in three dimensional space.
Calibration ProcessCalibration of the system to insure that physical dimensions are accurately scaled is not a necessity for use of the system in a diagnostic or therapeutic setting. However, the availability of heart geometry in real time can permit various hemodynamic measurements to be made and displayed to the physician as well. These measurements include systolic time intervals, stroke volume and cardiac output. Calibration, where desired, requires at least two electrodes 60 and 62 a known distance apart placed along the inner-surface of the heart chamber 16, as shown in
Each of the therapy catheters 18 shown in
Claims
1-3. (canceled)
4. A catheter assembly for mapping the electrical activity of a heart chamber, comprising:
- a lead body having a proximal end and a distal end for insertion into the heart chamber; and
- a deployable array of electrodes located at the distal end of the lead body, wherein the deployable array includes a plurality of limbs, each limb carrying one or more electrodes adapted to measure voltage on a surface of the heart chamber.
5. The catheter assembly of claim 4, wherein the deployable array further includes at least one active electrode.
6. The catheter assembly of claim 4, wherein each limb carries two electrodes.
7. The catheter assembly of claim 6, wherein at least one electrode on each limb is a ring electrode.
8. The catheter assembly of claim 4, further comprising:
- a handle coupled to the proximal end of the lead body, wherein the handle is configured to manipulate the position of the deployable array of electrodes.
9. The catheter assembly of claim 4 wherein at least one electrode is a passive electrode.
10. The catheter assembly of claim 9, wherein each passive electrode is configured to sense electrophysiological data.
11. The catheter assembly of claim 10, wherein each passive electrode is configured to sense an impedance.
12. The catheter assembly of claim 4, wherein the each of the plurality of limbs is connected to the distal end of the lead body at a proximal end of the limb.
13. The catheter assembly of claim 12, wherein the limbs in the plurality of limbs are connected at a distal end of the plurality of limbs.
14. A method for mapping electrical activity in a heart chamber, comprising:
- inserting a catheter having a plurality of limbs into the heart chamber;
- deploying the limbs of the catheter to place a plurality of passive electrodes onto a surface of the heart chamber;
- determining the position of the plurality of electrodes;
- measuring electrical activity on the surface of the heart chamber using the plurality of electrodes; and
- creating a electrophysiologic map of the measured electrical activity.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein the deploying step further comprises deploying an active electrode into the heart chamber.
16. The method of claim 14, wherein the deploying step further comprises deploying the limbs of the catheter to place a plurality of passive electrodes at precisely spaced intervals onto the surface of the heart chamber.
17. The method of claim 14, wherein the measuring step further comprises receiving electrophysiological data from the surface of the heart chamber.
18. The method of claim 17, wherein the measuring step further comprises measuring an impedance at the surface of the heart chamber.
19. The method of claim 14, wherein the deploying step further comprises deploying the limbs of the catheter such that the limbs are connected at a proximal end of the plurality of limbs.
20. The method of claim 19, wherein the deploying step further comprises deploying the limbs of the catheter such that the limbs are connected at a distal end of the plurality of limbs.
21. The method of claim 14, wherein the creating step further comprises creating a three-dimensional dynamic electrophysiologic map of the measured electrical activity.
Type: Application
Filed: Jun 2, 2008
Publication Date: Sep 25, 2008
Inventors: Graydon E. Beatty (Bloomington, MN), Jeffrey R. Budd (Shoreview, MN), John A. Hauck (Shoreview, MN)
Application Number: 12/131,750
International Classification: A61B 5/042 (20060101);