A three-state hyperthermic cell death model for the prediction of myocardial lesion

Radiofrequency (RF) catheter ablation is a minimally invasive procedure commonly used for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. Though it has been effectively practiced for many years, this procedure is not exempt from complications, including charring formation due to blood overheating at temperatures higher than 80ºC and the occurrence of steam pops for tissue temperatures around 100ºC. Several models have been introduced to simulate the RF ablation procedure, which provide lesion size estimations at the end of the ablation. Typically, either the 50ºC isotherm is considered as an estimation for the lesion, or an Arrhenius type model, which accounts for the time at which the tissue is at an altered state. In this work a three-state cell death model is considered for the estimation of the lesion, which captures the shrinkage of the damage region after the completion of the ablation.