Publications by authors named "Stephanie A Eyerly"
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how elastography imaging techniques, specifically shear wave elasticity imaging (SWEI) and acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI), can assess tissue stiffness changes during and after radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in dogs.* -
- Measurements were taken at RFA sites in six canines, revealing an immediate increase in tissue stiffness during ablation, with the stiffness area stabilizing two minutes post-ablation, while adjacent areas saw a slight increase over 15 minutes.* -
- Overall, the results indicate that these ultrasound techniques can reliably monitor and assess tissue stiffness shortly and up to 30 minutes after RFA, highlighting their potential for consistent lesion evaluation.*
Background: Visual confirmation of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) lesions during clinical cardiac ablation procedures could improve procedure efficacy, safety, and efficiency. It was previously shown that acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging can identify RFA lesions in vitro and in vivo in an animal model. This is the "first-in-human" feasibility demonstration of intracardiac ARFI imaging of RFA lesions in patients undergoing catheter ablation for atrial flutter (AFL) or atrial fibrillation (AF).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- This study investigates the use of acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging to visualize changes in tissue stiffness after radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in canine subjects.
- The main goals were to measure the displacements caused by ARFI in both ablated and unablated heart tissue and to evaluate the contrast and quality of ARFI images compared to standard echo images.
- Results showed that ARFI images had a higher accuracy in identifying lesion sites and produced better contrast and contrast-to-noise ratios than conventional imaging methods.
Background: Arrhythmia recurrence after cardiac radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for atrial fibrillation has been linked to conduction through discontinuous lesion lines. Intraprocedural visualization and corrective ablation of lesion line discontinuities could decrease postprocedure atrial fibrillation recurrence. Intracardiac acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging is a new imaging technique that visualizes RFA lesions by mapping the relative elasticity contrast between compliant-unablated and stiff RFA-treated myocardium.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Lesion placement and transmurality are critical factors in the success of cardiac transcatheter radiofrequency ablation (RFA) treatments for supraventricular arrhythmias. This study investigated the capabilities of catheter transducer based acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) ultrasound imaging for quantifying ablation lesion dimensions.
Methods And Results: RFA lesions were created in vitro in porcine ventricular myocardium and imaged with an intracardiac ultrasound catheter transducer capable of acquiring spatially registered B-mode and ARFI images.