EsoCool: Esophageal Cooling Device

Tina Li, Sai Krishna

Past members: Karley Benoff, Amanda Levenson, Zhi-yan Chen
Arun Sridhar, MD, Nazem Akoum, MD, Sravanthi Parasa, MD
Professor Jonathan Posner, Jonathan Liu, Eric Seibel, Kat Steele, Soyoung Kang, University of Washington
Engineering Innovation in Health

December 2017 - June 2018

Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is the most common heart arrhythmia, where the heart beats irregularly. In the U.S. alone, AFib affects 2.7-6.1 million people. If initial medication(s) fail to treat AFib symptoms sufficiently, affected patients must undergo a surgical procedure involving alterations to the electrical signals of the heart. One method of doing this is radiofrequency (RF) that involves running a catheter through a vein into the left atrium, where the tip is heated via RF waves and precise burns are created on the internal walls of the heart. Unfortunately, a fatal side effect of RF ablation is left atrial-esophageal fistula. Fistula is the development of a hole in the esophagus due to heat leakage from the ablation site. A fistula can lead to many complications, including a mortality rate of 40-80% of affected patients. Current preventative methods for fistula and lesion formation are extremely crude. Electrophysiologists wait for the esophagus to cool when the esophagus temperature is greater than body

temperature. This method causes low efficacy on the ablation sites, increases procedure time, and causes complications.

EsoCool prevents the chances of complications after RF ablation procedure by having localized cooling and active temperature sensing system inside the esophagus. EsoCool aims to save lives, improve the quality of medical care, and cut medical expenses.

Final paper and final poster available upon request.