Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics said yesterday the 1st 12 patients have been treated using its open-irrigated radio frequency ablation technology to treat atrial fibrillation.
The treatments were performed in Prague by study principal investigator Dr. Vivek Reddy of Mt. Sinai Hospital, the company said.
ACT’s RF tech incorporates a generator with a novel temperature-sensing low-flow catheter equipped with multiple sensors and a diamond heat shunting.
“What is truly extraordinary about the ACT technology is its ability to leverage temperature sensing to ablate efficiently, with ablation times that are reduced by over 50%. This technology provides a level of feedback to the operator that is greater than anything currently on the market and, accordingly, the system has the potential to change the way electrophysiologists perform RF ablation for a host of arrhythmias, including AFIB,” Dr. Reddy said in prepared remarks.
The system’s open-irrigation ablation capability allows operating electrophysiologists to hit therapeutic tissue temperatures targets for a range of contact force values, and when combined with the internal diamond network, provides heat shunting to keep the interface within a “safe range of temperatures,” the Santa Clara, Calif-based company said.
“The ACT system that was successfully used in humans last week validated its potential to completely redefine open-irrigated RF ablation technology,” CEO Duke Rohlen said in a prepared statement.
Data on the 1st 12 patients indicate a 100% acute rate of success, with an average RF-on-time per patient of 24 minutes and 49 seconds, and an average ablation application period of 17.1 seconds, with 406 ml of irrigation fluid used.