The goal of medical technology R&D is increased device efficacy: to perform each procedure more accurately, more quickly, and with greater specificity to the task. In other words, more precise, less invasive devices lead to better outcomes. Pulsed Field Ablation is one of the newest and most promising technologies in both regards.

Pulsed Field Ablation for atrial fibrillation only became available for US use about a year ago, but it’s already making significant differences in patient health and recovery. In years prior, thermal ablation was the industry standard for deactivation of cardiac cells that caused A-fib. Thermal ablation works as the name suggests, applying an extreme temperature change to a small area to ablate the overactive cells. The problem, in simple terms, is heat wick. Thermal energy diffuses via conduction and radiation. If enough thermal energy to ablate (destroy) the cells is applied in a particular area, it’s physically impossible to keep that energy from transferring into the surrounding tissue, even as it abates with time and distance. Certain areas in the body, this issue may be negligible, but inside the heart, there are many delicate, life-sustaining structures in close proximity, and any unintended damage can be life-threatening.

Pulsed Field Ablation uses a specially designed catheter to supply controlled electrical pulses, less to cause thermal damage (though this is still possible, if desired) but to apply amplitude, frequency, and duration of electrical waves so precisely attenuated that they interfere with tissue function at a sub-cellular level. (Comparing this to historic thermal ablation is akin to comparing a jackhammer and a jeweler’s chisel.) This interference causes irreversible electroporation, loss of the cellular membrane’s ability to control what enters and leaves the cell. Cells, then, are not thermally destroyed, but are pushed into a metabolic cascade failure from which they cease to function in a matter of hours or days.

The precision and relative “gentleness” of this procedure make normal thermal ablation obsolete, because less invasive is always the path to the future. At Transonic, we understand the need for less invasive cardiac equipment, even though we work in CABG surgery rather than ablation. We believe that the best pathway to the future is the pathway we walk together, so as an aside, we would like to humbly offer our own cardiac equipment for surgical flow measurement. Click here to see some of our technology that just might help you save a life.

Thanks for reading,

               Transonic Systems, Inc 

                        The Measure of Better Results