Proactive esophageal cooling protects against thermal insults during high-power short-duration radiofrequency cardiac ablation.

Background: Proactive cooling with a novel cooling device has been shown to reduce endoscopically identified thermal injury during radiofrequency (RF) ablation for the treatment of atrial fibrillation using medium power settings. We aimed to evaluate the effects of proactive cooling during high-power short-duration (HPSD) ablation.

Methods: A computer model accounting for the left atrium (1.