|Publication number||US7387629 B2|
|Application number||US 10/608,257|
|Publication date||17 Jun 2008|
|Filing date||27 Jun 2003|
|Priority date||21 Jan 2003|
|Also published as||CA2514036A1, CA2514036C, CA2651207A1, DE602004029566D1, EP1626754A2, EP1626754A4, EP1626754B1, US8864758, US20040143254, US20080228183, WO2004064893A2, WO2004064893A3|
|Publication number||10608257, 608257, US 7387629 B2, US 7387629B2, US-B2-7387629, US7387629 B2, US7387629B2|
|Inventors||Guy P. Vanney, Jeremy D. Dando|
|Original Assignee||St. Jude Medical, Atrial Fibrillation Division, Inc.|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (103), Non-Patent Citations (1), Referenced by (8), Classifications (13), Legal Events (4)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/441,824, filed 21 Jan. 2003 (the '824 application). The '824 application is hereby incorporated by reference as though fully set forth herein. This application is related to U.S. nonprovisional application Ser. No. 10/347,034, filed 17 Jan. 2003 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,984,232) and 11/264,649 filed 1 Nov. 2005 (the '649 application). The '034 and '649 applications are hereby incorporated by reference as though fully set forth herein.
a. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to catheters for diagnosing and treating tissue, particularly human cardiac tissue. In particular, the invention relates to a catheter comprising a distal portion having an active region, and the distal portion is designed to facilitate positioning of the active region at tissue to be diagnosed or treated.
b. Background Art
Catheters have been in use for medical procedures for many years. Catheters can be used for medical procedures to examine, diagnose, and treat while positioned at a specific location within the body that is otherwise inaccessible without more invasive procedures. During these procedures a catheter is inserted into a vessel near the surface of the body and is guided to a specific location within the body for examination, diagnosis, and treatment. For example, one procedure utilizes a catheter to convey an electrical stimulus to a selected location within the human body. Another procedure utilizes a catheter with sensing electrodes to monitor various forms of electrical activity in the human body.
Catheters are also used increasingly for medical procedures involving the human heart. Typically, the catheter is inserted in an artery or vein in the leg, neck, or arm of the patient and threaded, sometimes with the aid of a guide wire or introducer, through the vessels until a distal tip of the catheter reaches the desired location for the medical procedure in the heart.
A typical human heart includes a right ventricle, a right atrium, a left ventricle, and a left atrium. The right atrium is in fluid communication with the superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava. The atrioventricular septum separates the right atrium from the right ventricle. The tricuspid valve contained within the atrioventricular septum provides communication between the right atrium and the right ventricle.
In the normal heart, contraction and relaxation of the heart muscle (myocardium) takes place in an organized fashion as electro-chemical signals pass sequentially through the myocardium from the sinoatrial (SA) node, which comprises a bundle of unique cells disposed in the wall of the right atrium, to the atrioventricular (AV) node and then along a well-defined route, which includes the His-Purkinje system, into the left and right ventricles. The AV node lies near the ostium of the coronary sinus in the interatrial septum in the right atrium. Each cell membrane of the SA node has a characteristic tendency to leak sodium ions gradually over time such that the cell membrane periodically breaks down and allows an inflow of sodium ions, thereby causing the SA node cells to depolarize. The SA node cells are in communication with the surrounding atrial muscle cells such that the depolarization of the SA node cells causes the adjacent atrial muscle cells to depolarize. This results in atrial systole, wherein the atria contract to empty and fill blood into the ventricles. The atrial depolarization from the SA node is detected by the AV node which, in turn, communicates the depolarization impulse into the ventricles via the bundle of His and Purkinje fibers following a brief conduction delay. The His-Purkinje system begins at the AV node and follows along the membranous interatrial septum toward the tricuspid valve through the atrioventricular septum and into the membranous interventricular septum. At about the middle of the interventricular septum, the His-Purkinje system splits into right and left branches which straddle the summit of the muscular part of the interventricular septum.
Sometimes abnormal rhythms occur in the heart, which are referred to generally as arrhythmia. For example, a common arrhythmia is Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome (W-P-W). The cause of W-P-W is generally believed to be the existence of an anomalous conduction pathway or pathways that connect the atrial muscle tissue directly to the ventricular muscle tissue, thus bypassing the normal His-Purkinje system. These pathways are usually located in the fibrous tissue that connects the atrium and the ventricle.
Other abnormal arrhythmias sometimes occur in the atria, which are referred to as atrial arrhythmia. Three of the most common atrial arrhythmia are ectopic atrial tachycardia, atrial fibrillation, and atrial flutter. Atrial fibrillation can result in significant patient discomfort and even death because of a number of associated problems, including the following: an irregular heart rate, which causes patient discomfort and anxiety; loss of synchronous atrioventricular contractions, which compromises cardiac hemodynamics, resulting in varying levels of congestive heart failure; and stasis of blood flow, which increases the likelihood of thromboembolism.
Efforts to alleviate these problems in the past have included significant usage of pharmacological treatments. While pharmacological treatments are sometimes effective, in some circumstances drug therapy has had only limited effectiveness and is frequently plagued with side effects, such as dizziness, nausea, vision problems, and other difficulties.
An increasingly common medical procedure for the treatment of certain types of cardiac arrhythmia is catheter ablation. During conventional catheter ablation procedures, an energy source is placed in contact with cardiac tissue to heat the tissue and create a permanent scar or lesion that is electrically inactive or noncontractile. During one procedure, the lesions are designed to interrupt existing conduction pathways commonly associated with arrhythmias within the heart. The particular area for ablation depends on the type of underlying arrhythmia. One common ablation procedure treats atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT). Ablation of fast or slow AV nodal pathways is disclosed in Singer, I., et al., “Catheter Ablation for Arrhythmias,” Clinical Manual of Electrophysiology, pgs. 421-431 (1993). The use of electrode catheters for ablating specific locations within the heart has also been disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,641,649, 5,228,442, 5,231,995, 5,263,493, and 5,281,217.
Another medical procedure using ablation catheters with sheaths to ablate accessory pathways associated with W-P-W utilizing both a transseptal and retrograde approach is discussed in Saul, J. P., et al., “Catheter Ablation of Accessory Atrioventricular Pathways in Young Patients: Use of long vascular sheaths, the transseptal approach and a retrograde left posterior parallel approach,” Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Vol. 21, no. 3, pgs. 571-583 (1 Mar. 1993). Other catheter ablation procedures are disclosed in Swartz, J. F., “Radiofrequency Endocardial Catheter Ablation of Accessory Atrioventricular Pathway Atrial Insertion Sites,” Circulation, Vol. 87, no. 2, pgs. 487-499 (February 1993).
Ablation of a specific location within or near the heart requires the precise placement of the ablation catheter. Precise positioning of the ablation catheter is especially difficult because of the physiology of the heart, particularly because the heart continues to beat throughout the ablation procedures. Commonly, the choice of placement of the catheter is determined by a combination of electrophysiological guidance and fluoroscopy (placement of the catheter in relation to known features of the heart, which are marked by radiopaque diagnostic catheters that are placed in or at known anatomical structures, such as the coronary sinus, high right atrium, and the right ventricle).
Ablation procedures using guiding introducers to guide an ablation catheter to a particular location in the heart for treatment of atrial arrhythmia have been disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,427,119, 5,497,774, 5,564,440, 5,575,766, 5,628,316, and 5,640,955. During these procedures, ablation lesions are produced in the heart as an element of the medical procedure.
The energy necessary to ablate cardiac tissue and create a permanent lesion can be provided from a number of different sources. Originally, direct current was utilized although laser, microwave, ultrasound, and other forms of energy have also been utilized to perform ablation procedures. Because of problems associated with the use of DC current, however, radiofrequency (RF) has become the preferred source of energy for ablation procedures. The use of RF energy for ablation has been disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,945,912, 5,242,441, 5,246,438, 5,281,213, 5,281,218, and 5,293,868. The use of RF energy with an ablation catheter contained within a transseptal sheath for the treatment of W-P-W in the left atrium is disclosed in Swartz, J. F. et al., “Radiofrequency Endocardial Catheter Ablation of Accessory Atrioventricular Pathway Atrial Insertion Sites,” Circulation, Vol. 87, pgs. 487-499 (1993). See also Tracey, C. N., “Radio Frequency Catheter Ablation of Ectopic Atrial Tachycardia Using Paced Activation Sequence Mapping,” J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. Vol. 21, pgs. 910-917 (1993).
In addition to radiofrequency ablation catheters, thermal ablation catheters have been disclosed. During thermal ablation procedures, a heating element, secured to the distal end of a catheter, heats thermally conductive fluid, which fluid then contacts the human tissue to raise its temperature for a sufficient period of time to ablate the tissue. A method and device for thermal ablation using heat transfer is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,708. Another thermal ablation procedure utilizing a thermal electrode secured to a catheter and located within a balloon with openings in that balloon to permit heated conductive fluid introduced into the balloon from the catheter to escape from the balloon for contact with the tissue to be ablated is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,505,730.
Conventional ablation procedures utilize a single distal electrode secured to the tip of an ablation catheter. Increasingly, however, cardiac ablation procedures utilize multiple electrodes affixed to the catheter body. These ablation catheters often contain a distal tip electrode and a plurality of ring electrodes as disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,892,102, 5,228,442, 5,327,905, 5,354,297, 5,487,385, and 5,582,609.
To form linear lesions within the heart using a conventional ablation tip electrode requires the utilization of procedures such as a “drag burn.” The term “linear lesion” as used herein means and elongate, continuous lesion, whether straight or curved, that blocks electrical conduction. During a “drag burn” procedure, while ablating energy is supplied to the tip electrode, the tip electrode is drawn across the tissue to be ablated, producing a line of ablation. Alternatively, a series of points of ablation are formed in a line created by moving the tip electrode incremental distances across the cardiac tissue. The effectiveness of these procedures depends on a number of variables including the position and contact pressure of the tip electrode of the ablation catheter against the cardiac tissue, the time that the tip electrode of the ablation catheter is placed against the tissue, the amount of coagulum that is generated as a result of heat generated during the ablation procedure, and other variables associated with a beating heart, especially an erratically beating heart. Unless an uninterrupted track of cardiac tissue is ablated, unablated tissue or incompletely ablated tissue may remain electrically active, permitting the continuation of the stray circuit that causes the arrhythmia.
It has been discovered that more efficient ablation may be achieved if a linear lesion of cardiac tissue is formed during a single ablation procedure. The production of linear lesions in the heart by use of an ablation catheter is disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,487,385, 5,582,609, and 5,676,662. A specific series of linear lesions formed in the atria for the treatment of atrial arrhythmia are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,575,766.
The ablation catheters commonly used to perform these ablation procedures produce electrically inactive or noncontractile tissue at a selected location by physical contact of the cardiac tissue with an electrode of the ablation catheter. Conventional tip electrodes with adjacent ring electrodes cannot perform this type of procedure, however, because of the high amount of energy that is necessary to ablate sufficient tissue to produce a complete linear lesion. Also, conventional ring electrode ablation may leave holes or gaps in a lesion, which can provide a pathway along which unwanted circuits can travel.
An ablation catheter for use in the heart that contains a pair of intertwined helical electrodes is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,334,193. The helically wound electrode is affixed to the surface of the catheter body over a distance of about eight centimeters from the distal tip of the catheter body. Other helical electrodes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,161,952, 4,776,334, 4,860,769, 4,934,049, 5,047,026, 5,542,928, and WO 95/10319.
During conventional ablation procedures, the ablating energy is delivered directly to the cardiac tissue by an electrode on the catheter placed against the surface of the tissue to raise the temperature of the tissue to be ablated. This rise in tissue temperature also causes a rise in the temperature of blood surrounding the electrode, which often results in the formation of coagulum on the electrode, which reduces the efficiency of the ablation electrode. With direct contact between the electrode and the blood, some of the energy targeted for the tissue ablation is dissipated into the blood.
To achieve efficient and effective ablation, coagulation of blood that is common with conventional ablation catheters should be avoided. This coagulation problem can be especially significant when linear ablation lesions or tracks are produced because such linear ablation procedures conventionally take more time than ablation procedures ablating only a single location.
In some instances, stray electrical signals find a pathway down the pulmonary veins and into the left atrium of the heart. In these instances, it may be advantageous to produce a circumferential lesion at or near the ostium of one or more of the pulmonary veins. Desirably, such a circumferential lesion would electrically isolate a pulmonary vein from the left atrium, completely blocking stray signals from traveling down the pulmonary vein and into the left atrium. It is desirable to have a catheter with a distal portion for forming such circumferential lesions in tissue while avoiding problems with existing designs.
It is an object of the disclosed invention to provide an improved catheter for diagnosing and treating tissue, including tissue within the human heart and the pulmonary veins. This and other objects are provided by the ablation catheter that is disclosed by the present invention.
The instant invention is, in one form, a catheter for ablating tissue and comprises a catheter shaft having a proximal portion and a distal portion. The distal portion is adapted to be inserted into a body cavity having tissue to be ablated and is disposed remotely from the proximal portion. The distal portion comprises an outer peripheral wall having an active region, and the distal portion has a cross-sectional configuration along the active region. The cross-sectional configuration is adapted to bias the active region against the tissue to be ablated. In one form, the cross-sectional configuration along the active region has a flattened outer peripheral wall. Such cross-sectional configurations include polygonal configurations. As used herein, a “polygonal configuration” may include a curved line segment or a curved side. Thus, D-shaped, triangular, or rectangular cross-sectional configurations are all polygonal configurations as that term is used herein. Cross-sectional configuration having a flattened outer peripheral wall may also include, for example, elliptical configurations.
In another form, the instant invention is a catheter for diagnosing and treating tissue. The catheter comprises a catheter shaft having a proximal portion and a distal portion. The distal portion, which may be curved or straight, comprises an active region and at least one lumen. The active region has a longitudinal axis, and the at least one lumen is adapted to carry wires, optical fibers, and fluids for a variety of functional purposes. In this form of the invention, the distal portion has a cross-sectional configuration that is asymmetric about at least one plane containing the longitudinal axis of the active region.
A more detailed explanation of the invention is provided in the following description and claims, and is illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
In general, the instant invention relates to an ablation catheter 10, which may comprise part of an ablation catheter assembly 12, wherein the ablation catheter 10 comprises a catheter shaft 14 having a proximal portion 16 and a unique distal portion 18 (see, e.g.,
As shown in
As shown in
The porous conductor 24 (see, e.g.,
The distal portion 18 of the ablation catheter 10 according to the first embodiment, for example, is positioned adjacent to the ostium 98 of the left superior pulmonary vein 84 (see
While the distal portion 18 of the ablation catheter 10 is near the ostium 98 of the left superior pulmonary vein 84 as depicted in
In order for the ablation catheter to form a sufficient lesion, it is desirable to raise the temperature of the tissue to at least 50-60° C. for an appropriate length of time. Thus, sufficient RF energy must be supplied to the porous conductor to produce this lesion-forming temperature in the adjacent tissue for the desired duration. When the flow rate of the conductive fluid medium is appropriately regulated, the conductive fluid medium flows at a sufficient rate to avoid stagnation or re-circulation and to push blood away from the gap between the catheter and the tissue. The flow rate should be high enough to prevent or minimize vaporization of the conductive fluid medium since such vaporization can inhibit delivery of ablation energy to the tissue. As previously mentioned, the distal portion of the ablation catheter forms the lesion by direct conduction of ablation energy from the porous conductor through the conductive fluid medium and into the tissue.
The conductive fluid medium flowing through the porous conductor and portholes prevents blood from flowing into the distal portion of the ablation catheter and pushes blood from the area adjacent to the portholes. This helps prevent formation of coagulum, which can have undesirable effects on the patient. As mentioned above, the conductive fluid medium is caused to flow at a rate that prevents the electrode from overheating the conductive fluid medium and producing vapor in the first lumen. If the conductive fluid medium were to boil, creating vapor, the ablation catheter's ability to form a desired lesion in the adjacent tissue may be greatly reduced or inhibited since the ablation energy may be unable to reach the tissue in sufficient quantity. Thus, the flow of conductive fluid medium through the first lumen, the porous conductor, and out of the portholes is managed or regulated so that there is sufficient flow to prevent vaporization, but not so much flow that the gap between the catheter and the tissue opens, prohibiting the porous conductor from being able to deliver sufficient energy to the adjacent tissue to form a desired lesion. If the gap between the catheter and the tissue becomes too great, an undesirable amount of the ablation energy may pass to the blood rather than to the tissue. Also, if the conductive fluid medium flows out the portholes at too high of a flow rate, the composition of the patient's blood may be adversely effected by the excess quantity of conductive fluid medium being mixed with the patient's blood.
The desired flow rate of the conductive fluid medium is achieved by adjusting, for example, the pressure pushing the conductive fluid medium through the first lumen, changing the size of the first lumen, changing the finish on the inner wall of the first lumen, changing the size or distribution of the portholes, changing the cross-sectional configuration of the portholes, altering the spacing 100 (
As shown in
In the fourth and fifth variants of the first embodiment depicted in
The unique cross-sectional configurations depicted in
Although preferred embodiments of this invention have been described above with a certain degree of particularity, those skilled in the art could make numerous alterations to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of this invention. For example, the porous conductor described above could be used with another electrical element. In such an embodiment, the mesh or weave may not distribute energy, thereby comprising, for example, a passive part of a fluid distribution manifold. In contrast, the porous conductor described above both comprises part of the fluid distribution manifold and distributes energy. Also, the drawings disclose a distal portion of the catheter that includes a plurality of circular portholes, but the portholes need not be circular, and a single, elongated porthole may be used in place of the depicted plurality of portholes. All directional references (e.g., upper, lower, upward, downward, left, right, leftward, rightward, top, bottom, above, below, vertical, horizontal, clockwise, and counterclockwise) are only used for identification purposes to aid the reader's understanding of the present invention, and do not create limitations, particularly as to the position, orientation, or use of the invention. It is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative only and not limiting. Changes in detail or structure may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention as defined in the appended claims.
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|U.S. Classification||606/41, 607/105|
|International Classification||A61B18/18, A61M25/00, A61B18/14|
|Cooperative Classification||A61B2018/00065, C08L2201/12, A61B2017/00867, A61B2018/00375, A61B2018/1472, A61M25/0041, A61B18/1492|
|11 Nov 2003||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: ST. JUDE MEDICAL, DAIG DIVISION, INC., MINNESOTA
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:VANNEY, GUY P.;DANDO, JEREMY D.;REEL/FRAME:014118/0770
Effective date: 20030623
|30 Mar 2006||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: ST. JUDE MEDICAL, ATRIAL FIBRILLATION DIVISION, IN
Free format text: CHANGE OF NAME;ASSIGNOR:ST. JUDE MEDICAL, DAIG DIVISION, INC.;REEL/FRAME:017389/0907
Effective date: 20051221
|16 Nov 2011||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|17 Dec 2015||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 8