LOCATING AND ABLATING PATHWAYS IN THE HEART

摘要

Systems and methods sense electrical events about a selected annulus region (26, 30) of the heart (10) to identify the location of an accessory pathway. They establish a contact site between heart tissue and a multi-electrode array (E1-E10) conforming to the circumferential geometry of the selected annulus region (26, 30). The system and methods maintain this site, while conveying signals representing electrical events sensed by bipolar pairs of the electrodes (E1-E10). The systems and methods display the signals as graphic information that represents the time differences (T1, T2) between the atrium (A) and ventricular (V) electrogram complexes sensed by the pairs (E1-E10) on the selected annulus region (26, 30). The pairs (E1-E10) displaying the least time separation between the complexes (A, V) identifies the region of the accessory pathway. With this information, energy is conveyed to the electrodes of the selected pair to ablate tissue.