Location and characterization of myocardial infarctions using a multielectrode, intracavitary probe

It has been suggested that catheter ablation would be more effective if it could completely ablate the thin rim of spared endocardium overlying a myocardial infarction (MI). In order to accomplish such an MI-related ablation, the MI must be located and its boundaries delineated. This model study explores the use of a multi-electrode, intracavitary probe to locate and characterize MI´s. Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) was performed on the average of many cardiac cycles from a spherical shells model. In repeated simulations, it was always possible to reduce the rms estimation error for both size and location to below 1 mm of endocardial distance, even in the presence of noise and probe movement