3-D respiratory motion compensation during EP procedures by image-based 3-D lasso catheter model generation and tracking.

Radio-frequency catheter ablation of the pulmonary veins attached to the left atrium is usually carried out under fluoroscopy guidance. Two-dimensional X-ray navigation may involve overlay images derived from a static pre-operative 3-D volumetric data set to add anatomical details. However, respiratory motion may impair the utility of static overlay images for catheter navigation. We developed a system for image-based 3-D motion estimation and compensation as a solution to this problem for which no previous solution is yet known. It is based on 3-D catheter tracking involving 2-D/3-D registration. A biplane X-ray C-arm system is used to image a special circumferential (lasso) catheter from two directions. In the first step of the method, a 3-D model of the device is reconstructed. 3-D respiratory motion at the site of ablation is then estimated by tracking the reconstructed model in 3-D from biplane fluoroscopy. In our experiments, the circumferential catheter was tracked in 231 biplane fluoro frames (462 monoplane fluoro frames) with an average 2-D tracking error of 1.0 mm +/- 0.5 mm.