Coupled Thermo-Electro-Mechanical Models of Cardiac Ablation at Tissue-Cellular Scales and a Role of Microtubules

Abstract

Radiofrequency ablation is a medical procedure that is becoming increasingly used for disease treatments. During this procedure, part of dysfunctional tissues is ablated by using the heat, typically generated from medium frequency electric current. It is a field of medicine where mathematical and computational models play a substantial role in assisting clinical practitioners with quantifications of some of the most critical characteristics, including temperature distributions and ablated volumes. In this contribution, we describe a framework for the development of coupled thermo-electro-mechanical models in this field. While our framework and the described validation procedures can be applicable to a variety of ablation modalities and treatments, a major focus has been given to some of the pecularities related to cardiac ablation at tissue-cellular scales and a role played by cell organelles such as microtubules, as well as by the cell nucleus. We have discussed the effects their inclusion makes on the calculation of the main characteristics of the radiofrequency ablation procedures. The importance of domain heterogeneity, as well as the integration of fluid-structure interaction in the developed framework along with other effects, have been highlighted and the details on ablation modalities in the context of clinical experimental research have been given. Finally, future generalizations of the proposed framework with hybrid stochastic-deterministic models have been put forward.

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