Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia. Pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) by catheter ablation is a cornerstone treatment of paroxysmal AF. Low success rates are mainly due to reconnecting tissue. Local myocardial wall-thickness (WT) information is missing; lesion transmurality is impossible to estimate. WT information can be obtained from pencil beam high-resolution MRI, a...

prevalence of thyroid nodules diagnosed by ultrasonography has been reported to be high (about 50%) probably due to iodine deficiency in our region. most thyroid nodules benign but some require treatment for cosmetic reasons or subjective symptoms. the conventional method of treatment in iran is surgery. for the first time in iran, from february 2016, 50 patients with 63 nodules (solid or cysti...

The efficacy of catheter ablation has improved dramatically over the past 3 decades as our understanding of ablation lesion formation has led to technological advances that have resulted in the ability to reliably create large and deep lesions. In the early years, operators were constrained during radiofrequency (RF) ablation with 2-mm nonirrigated electrodes by the tendency for the electrode–t...

Measurements of the angle-dependent ablation rates of polymers that have applications in microdevice fabrication are reported. A simple model based on Beer’s law, including plume absorption, is shown to give good agreement with the experimental findings for polycarbonate and SU8, ablated using the 193 and 248 nm excimer lasers, respectively. The modeling forms a useful tool for designing masks ...

Silicon carbide mirrors are sought for a variety of aerospace applications. While optical polishing techniques are straight forward for flat and spherical surfaces, material removal rates for this hard, brittle material are too low for affordable processing of conventionally machined, ground, or as-produced surfaces. The problem is more severe for aspheres. This paper reports on the use of pico...

Focal atrial tachycardia (AT) is a relatively uncommon cause of supraventricular tachycardia, but when present is frequently difficult to treat medically. Atrial tachycardias tend to originate from anatomically determined atrial sites. The P-wave morphology on surface electrocardiogram (ECG) together with more sophisticated contemporary mapping techniques facilitates precise localisation and ab...

BACKGROUND Transthoracic epicardial catheter ablation is an emerging catheter ablation strategy being used clinically at increasing frequency. However, the efficacy of standard RF ablation on the epicardial surface of the heart is hindered by (1) the lack of convective cooling of the ablation electrode and (2) the varying presence of epicardial adipose tissue interposed between the ablation ele...

Background—Transthoracic epicardial catheter ablation is an emerging catheter ablation strategy being used clinically at increasing frequency. However, the efficacy of standard RF ablation on the epicardial surface of the heart is hindered by (1) the lack of convective cooling of the ablation electrode and (2) the varying presence of epicardial adipose tissue interposed between the ablation ele...

Focal atrial tachycardias and atrial flutter represent a considerable part of the arrhythmias treated by electrophysiologists worldwide. Antiarrhythmic drug therapy might control these arrhythmias. Unfortunately, in many cases this therapy is fraught with side effects or ar-rhythmias recur. With the advent of invasive electrophysiology, an increasing number of these substrates are becoming amen...

PURPOSE To report topography-guided photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) with mitomycin C (MMC) after penetrating keratoplasty for keratoconus. METHODS A 34-year-old woman with irregular astigmatism after penetrating keratoplasty in the right eye underwent PRK. Topography-guided surface ablation using the customized aspheric treatment zone ablation (CATz) was programmed for a 5.00-mm optical zon...