Electric Micro-Steerable catheter using smart electroactive polymers

描述(申请人提供)：心律失常是最常见的心脏疾病之一。房颤(AFib)是一种常见的心律失常，发病率很高。目前有超过250万美国人患有房颤，每年约有16万新诊断病例。据估计，40岁以上的美国人患房颤的终生风险为25%。纤维蛋白原可导致心绞痛、心力衰竭和中风。对于患有严重和频繁发作的这些心律失常的患者，房颤的治疗是必不可少的。消融导管既可用于治疗室性和室上性心律失常，也可用于治疗室性和室上性心律失常，越来越多的证据表明，与药物治疗和植入治疗相比，消融导管治疗心律失常是有效的。所提出的基于EAP的电微导向导管利用由SPS的创始人之一发明的突破性固态致动器技术来操纵导管的位置。EAP致动器中施加的电压与尺寸变化之间的线性对应使得能够精确控制导管尖端及其力水平，从而大大缩短了手术时间，同时具有可编程的操作能力。所提出的驱动技术易于与当前的导管集成，从而产生了非常低成本的装置。公共卫生相关性：基于SPS专利电活性聚合物的先进微定向心脏消融导管的开发可以显著减少治疗心房颤动的程序时间和成本。这将使数百万患有心律失常的美国人能够广泛获得和接受拯救生命的治疗性导管消融。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Arrhythmias are among the most common disorders of the heart. Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is a common arrhythmia associated with significant morbidity. There are currently more than 2.5 million Americans suffering from AFib and there are about 160,000 new cases diagnosed each year. The lifetime risk for the development of AFib is estimated 25% for Americans older than 40. AFib can lead to angina, heart failure, and stroke. Treatment of AFib is essential for the patient suffering from severe and frequent episodes of these arrhythmias. Ablation catheters are used to treat both ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmia, and there is emerging evidence that the ablation catheter treatment of arrhythmias is curative compared with drug therapy and implant treatments which are not curative. The proposed EAP-based electrical micro-steerable catheter utilizes a breakthrough solid state actuator technology, invented by one of the founders of SPS, to manipulate the catheter position. The linear correspondence between the applied voltage and the dimension change in the EAP actuator enables precise control of the catheter tip and its force level, resulting in a significantly reduced procedure time with the benefit of a programmable operation capability. The ease of integration of the proposed actuation technology with the current catheter results in a very low cost device. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The development of advanced micro-steerable cardiac ablation catheter based on SPS proprietary electroactive polymers can significantly reduce the procedure time and cost to treat the atrial fibrillation. This will enable the wide accessibility and acceptance of the life-saving curative catheter ablation to millions of Americans threaded by cardiac arrhythmias.