Path planning for robot-enhanced cardiac radiofrequency catheter ablation

Abstract

Radiofrequency Catheter Ablation (RFCA) is a procedure used to treat cardiac arrhythmias by burning at regions of the endocardial walls to prevent the abnormal electrical circuits causing the problem. Patients with Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) who have undergone surgical treatments suffer scarring within the heart that can lead to ab- normal cardiac rhythms. However, poor intraoperative cardiac geometry recovery and incomplete Electrophysiological (EP) mapping due to limited available procedure time and complex anatomy have resulted in difficulty to detect the regions to ablate and hence relatively high recurrence rates. In this paper, we present a catheter path planning algorithm to optimise cardiac EP mapping. Firstly, the optimal mapping positions are determined by curvature and distance weighted Quadric Error Metric Simplification (QEMS) to maximally recover the cardiac chamber geometry and EP mapping. Secondly, an efficient path is designed that moves along a predetermined axis for a robotic catheter to pass through and collect EP data at these positions. Validation is performed on retrospectively collected CARTO data from ACHD patients.