Diagnostic Robotic System Wins Seed GrantISR-affiliated Associate Professor Jaydev Desai (ME) has won a 2011 University of Maryland College Park-University of Maryland Baltimore Seed Grant for his research, "Accurate Robotic in-situ Diagnosis of Ablation Targets for Atrial Fibrillation." Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and has high patient morbidity and health care costs (relative risk of patient mortality is double in patients with AF). Each year, about 200,000 Americans are newly diagnosed with AF with a prevalence of several million in the U.S. alone. As the incidence of AF increases with age, the expected demographic shift predicts an even further increase of this clinical challenge in the decades ahead. Prevention and treatment of AF requires anticoagulation therapy in many patients with the risk of intracranial hemorrhage and bleeding thiasesis. Suppression of AF with antiarrhythmic drugs is associated with proarrhythmic effects, which can present with life-threatening consequences. The goal of this seed grant between the University of Maryland College Park and the University of Maryland Baltimore is to enable the physician to view micro-scale myocardial extensions into the pulmonary vein, with the aid of a robotic system that will enable good contact of the diagnostic robotic steerable cannula with the pulmonary vein. The researchers will gain insight into possible improvement in diagnosis, since there is currently no such system that will allow visualization at that scale for atrial fibrillation procedures.
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