Other

Olympus Corporation

David C Amundson

Larry O Blankenship

H John Hanlin

Bradley P Knight

John H Hanlin

A novel transparent electrode that uses a conductive coating to allow delivery of current to the heart as well as outward imaging through the electrode is described. The embodiments disclose a catheter incorporating an endoscope, whose imaging tip is coated with a conductive coating that is transparent in the endoscopic image. However, a transparent electrode may be fashioned for any imaging modality, such as intracardiac echocardiography (ICE), that finds the electrode to be transparent to the energy used. This electrode coating may be a thin, optically transparent or translucent coating of platinum or gold or may be a pattern with enough open spaces to see the underlying tissue, such as looking through a screen. A wire is connected to the conductive coating and routed to a radiofrequency generator.

Transparent electrode for the radiofrequency ablation of tissue

A device and method for imaging an object that is situated within a fluid environment having suspended particles uses infrared illumination. In a representative application, a catheter having fiber optics is inserted into the vasculature of a patient. The fiber optics transmits infrared light to an optical head at a distal end of the catheter, which transmits the light into a bloody environment to an object to be imaged. Light reflecting from the object is collected and transmitted throughout the fiber optic to an infrared camera, so that an image is formed. Proper selection of the wavelength of infrared illumination allows objects to be imaged through what would otherwise be an opaque liquid. The invention has particular utility in the field of medical imaging.

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Boulder, CO, United States of America

David C Amundson