Irrigated Ablation Catheters
Two open-irrigated ablation catheters were compared. Images of the catheter tips are shown in Figure 1A. The FlexAbilityTM SE ablation catheter has a laser-cut 4-mm flexible 8Fr tip, which is irrigated from the proximal to distal end through laser-cut kerfs, and from four holes on the distal end of the tip. The TactiCathTM SE ablation catheter has a 3.5-mm 8Fr tip and has 6-hole irrigation holes on the side of the tip. Both catheters have a single thermocouple embedded within the tip for temperature monitoring, and the distance from the tip is 0.3mm in the FlexAbilityTM SE catheter and 2.64mm in the TactiCathTM SE catheter.