US-12616414-B2 - Smart cardiac electrophysiological (EP) map

US12616414B2US 12616414 B2US12616414 B2US 12616414B2US-12616414-B2

Abstract

A system for generating an electrophysiological (EP) map includes a display and a processor. The processor is configured to (i) receive multiple EP data points comprising respective locations and EP values, generated from signals acquired by one or more electrodes of a catheter that are in contact with tissue of a cardiac chamber, (ii) score the received data points with respective quality scores, (iii) for a given unit volume of the EP map, select, from among the data points whose locations fall in the unit volume, a data point with a highest quality score, for use in generating the EP map, and (iv) visualize the EP map to a user, on the display.

Inventors

Shaked Weiss
Jonathan Yarnitsky
Ben Ami Novogrodsky
Meytal Segev
Itay Ostrov

Assignees

BIOSENSE WEBSTER (ISRAEL) LTD.

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20230209

Claims (10)

1 . A system for generating an electrophysiological (EP) map, the system comprising: a display; a catheter having one or more electrodes, the one or more electrodes configured to contact cardiac tissue and acquire multiple EP data points within a cardiac chamber of a patient; and a processor, configured to: receive the EP data points, each data point comprising a respective spatial location within the cardiac chamber and an EP value, generated from signals acquired by the one or more electrodes; score the received data points with respective quality scores, each quality score being based on at least two data point parameters; generate an EP map of at least a portion of the cardiac chamber, based on the acquired data points; for each of a plurality of predefined unit volumes partitioning the EP map, select from among the data points whose locations fall within the respective unit volume, a data point having a highest quality score, wherein only the selected data point for each unit volume is used in generating the EP map; replace, in any of the unit volumes, the selected data point if a newly-acquired data point within that unit volume has a higher quality score; and visualize the EP map to a user, on the display.
2 . The system according to claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to adjust the quality score according to a user-selected type of arrhythmia.
3 . The system according to claim 1 , wherein the quality score comprises a weighted scoring of at least two data point parameters selected from: i) signal pattern matching, (ii) annotated cycle length, (iii) LAT stability, (iv) complex/simple data point flagging, (v) electrode contact pressure index, (vi) electrode position stability (vii) respiratory flax, (vii) signal SNR, and (viii) sharpness of signal deflection.
4 . The system according to claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to generate and present to the user on the display a layer of the EP map that spatially indicates a quality of the EP map according to a quality score of the selected data points.
5 . The system according to claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to display a graphical user interface (GUI) that enables the user to set a threshold of the quality score, and to reject any data point whose quality score is below the threshold.
6 . A method for generating an electrophysiological (EP) map, the method comprising: inserting a catheter into a cardiac chamber of a patient, the catheter having one or more electrodes, the one or more electrodes configured to contact cardiac tissue within the cardiac chamber; acquiring, by the one or more electrode, multiple EP data points within the cardiac chamber, each data point comprising a respective spatial location within the cardiac chamber and an EP value, generated from signals acquired by the one or more electrodes; scoring the received data points with respective quality scores, each quality score being based on at least two data point parameters; generating an EP map of at least a portion of the cardiac chamber, based on the acquired data points; for each of a plurality of predefined unit volumes partitioning the EP map, selecting from among the data points whose locations fall within the respective unit volume, a data point having a highest quality score, wherein only the selected data point for each unit volume is used in generating the EP map; replacing, in any of the unit volumes, the selected data point if a newly-acquired data point within that unit volume has a higher quality score; and visualizing the EP map to a user, on a display.
7 . The method according to claim 6 , further comprising adjusting the quality score according to a user-selected type of arrhythmia.
8 . The method according to claim 6 , wherein the quality score comprises a weighted scoring of at least two data point parameters selected from (i) signal pattern matching, (ii) annotated cycle length, (iii) LAT stability, (iv) complex/simple data point flagging, (v) electrode contact pressure index, (vi) electrode position stability (vii) respiratory flax, (vii) signal SNR, and (viii) sharpness of signal deflection.
9 . The method according to claim 6 , further comprising generating and presenting to the user on the display a layer of the EP map that spatially indicates a quality of the EP map according to a quality score of the selected data points.
10 . The method according to claim 6 , further comprising displaying a graphical user interface (GUI) that enables the user to set a threshold of the quality score, and to reject any data point whose quality score is below the threshold.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application 63/317,117, filed Mar. 7, 2022, which is incorporated herein by reference. FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE The present disclosure relates generally to cardiac electrophysiological (EP) mapping, and particularly to automation of generation of data points for cardiac EP maps. BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSURE Automatic processing of catheter-acquired EP signals was previously described in the patent literature. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2009/0099468 describes a method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for automated processing of intracardiac electrophysiological data. The method comprises the steps of: recording electrogram data and corresponding spatial location data of an electrode recording the electrogram data, the recorded electrogram data comprising a plurality of beats; defining at least one reference channel containing a reference beat for determining temporal locations and against which beats of the recorded electrogram data are compared; examining the recorded electrogram data and defining a temporal location for each beat of the recorded electrogram data; creating an index of the temporal locations and other information of the beats within the recorded electrogram data; analyzing in real-time at least one electrophysiological feature of the recorded electrogram data suggestive of a physiological condition; and providing an updated index wherein the other information comprises results of the analysis. As another example, U.S. Pat. No. 10,376,221 describes automatic creation of multiple electroanatomic maps. Cardiac electrograms are recorded in a plurality of channels. Beats are classified automatically into respective classifications according to a resemblance of the morphologic characteristics of the beats to members of a set of templates. Respective electroanatomic maps of the heart are generated from the classified beats. The present disclosure will be more fully understood from the following detailed description of the examples thereof, taken together with the drawings in which: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a schematic, pictorial illustration of a system for electrophysiological (EP) mapping and ablation, in accordance with an example of the present disclosure; FIG. 2 is a flow chart that schematically illustrates a method for considering a candidate data point based on automatic quality scoring of the data point, in accordance with an example of the present disclosure; FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of a graphical user interface (GUI) of the electrophysiological (EP) mapping system of FIG. 1, the GUI including a scale for setting a quality scoring threshold, in accordance with an example of the present disclosure; and FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of an informative layer of an EP map, the layer spatially indicating EP map quality according to quality score of the automatically accepted data points by the process of FIG. 2, in accordance with an example of the present disclosure. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXAMPLES Overview Probe-based (e.g., catheter-based) cardiac diagnostic and therapeutic systems may measure multiple intra-cardiac electrophysiological (EP) signals, such as electrograms (EGM), during an invasive procedure. Such systems acquire multiple intra-cardiac signals using one or more electrodes (e.g., multiple electrodes) that are fitted at the distal end of the probe. For example, to reduce the time required to EP map a heart chamber, e.g., to acquire EGM signals of the chamber, a catheter carrying a large number of electrodes (e.g., 256), such as a basket catheter, may be used. In many cases, the analysis of such a large number EP signals acquired in parallel is done, for example, to generate data points used to generate an EP map in continuous mode (automatically), in order to enable processing such a vast amount of EP information. The generation of the data points typically involves applying rejection criteria (e.g., the use of “filtering” to avoid using “erroneous” data points, such as those that are irrelevant or too noisy) at any given time. The physician performing the procedure therefore needs to set “adequate” filtering criteria and to monitor the filtration process in order to ensure that its settings produce a sufficient quality (e.g., relevant, stable) of data points (e.g., for an EP map). Thus, acquired data points are typically subjected to filtration (e.g., rejection criteria) to remove data points that may be incorrect (e.g., unstable) or irrelevant (e.g., acquired from the blood pool instead of the chamber surface). When acquired data points are subjected to multiple filters each having individual thresholds, a failure of a point to pass any one filter causes the point to be rejected, even if it might be acceptable if not high-quality, all things considered. For large total numbers of data points acquired during