SAR distribution of microwave antenna for atrial fibrillation catheter ablation

Atrial Fibrillation is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia. Minimally invasive ablation using surgical navigation technology gradually becomes the main-stream method in atrial fibrillation surgery. In this paper, a simplified 3D antenna-myocardium-blood numerical model is built and specific absorption rate (SAR) distribution is investigated at the frequency of 2450MHz using the FEM method embodied in Ansoft HFSS. The peak SAR is localized in the tissue at about 26mm along the axis of microwave antenna (with antenna length about 30mm) and very low SAR values is along the antenna length. The electromagnetic numerical results validated that the microwave antenna can deliver localized microwave power and provide acceptable SAR pattern. Also the research does an initial coupled electromagnetic-thermal analysis to obtain the temperature distribution with increasing heating time during microwave ablation.