Whole-heart ventricular arrhythmia modeling moving forward: Mechanistic insights and translational applications.

Ventricular arrhythmias are the primary cause of sudden cardiac death and one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Whole-heart computational modeling offers a unique approach for studying ventricular arrhythmias, offering vast potential for developing both a mechanistic understanding of ventricular arrhythmias and clinical applications for treatment. In this review, the fundamentals of whole-heart ventricular modeling and current methods of personalizing models using clinical data are presented.

An Analysis of Open-Ended Coaxial Probe Sensitivity to Heterogeneous Media.

Open-ended coaxial probe spectroscopy is commonly used to determine the dielectric permittivity of biological tissues. However, heterogeneities in the probe sensing region can limit measurement precision and reproducibility. This study presents an analysis of the coaxial probe sensing region to elucidate the effects of heterogeneities on measured permittivity.

Computed Tomography-Based Modeling of Water Vapor-Induced Changes in Permittivity During Microwave Ablation.

Objective: Measurements of tissue permittivity with small open-ended coaxial probes during microwave tissue heating have been plagued by high variability as tissue water becomes vaporized. Analysis of such variability has been hampered by a lack of direct visualization of the measurement volume. The objective of this study was to determine if X-ray computed tomography (CT) could be used to visualize the measurement volume and then predict dielectric permittivity based on the visualized tissue composition.

Development of Water Content Dependent Tissue Dielectric Property Models.

We propose dielectric tissue property models dependent on both water and air content covering the microwave frequency range. Water is the largest constituent of biological tissues and its effect on the dielectric properties of biological tissue has been studied. However, dehydration effects due to thermal heating have not been fully characterized.

Quantifying optical properties with visible and near-infrared optical coherence tomography to visualize esophageal microwave ablation zones.

Microwave ablation is a minimally invasive image guided thermal therapy for cancer that can be adapted to endoscope use in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Microwave ablation in the GI tract requires precise control over the ablation zone that could be guided by high resolution imaging with quantitative contrast. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides ideal imaging resolution and allows for the quantification of tissue scattering properties to characterize ablated tissue.