Patent ID: 9597145
Date: 2017-03-21
CPC Classifications: A61B,A61N

Claim:
1. A minimally invasive method for treating tissue in a body via direct current ablation comprising: inserting a catheter into the body, wherein a portion of the catheter remains outside of the body when the catheter is in a treatment position; deploying a fixation element associated with the catheter to fix the catheter in the treatment position; determining a treatment zone shape adjacent to the treatment position; deploying a plurality of electrodes through the catheter into the tissue proximate the catheter and corresponding to the treatment shape; determining treatment parameters for each of the deployed catheters extending from the treatment position, the treatment parameters including both dose (Coulomb/electrode) and time at a predetermined current level to deliver the dose, wherein the treatment parameters are determined to ablate the treatment zone shape based on direct current ablation by the electrodes; inputting the determined treatment parameters into at least one of a power source and a processor; applying current between about 10 and 100 mA of direct current per electrode and power having less than 3200 mW per electrode to deliver a charge to each of the plurality of electrodes using the power source, wherein the direct current applied is based on the treatment parameters; wherein upon application of the direct current, at least one of the plurality of electrodes imparts at least one of a high pH and a low pH in a treatment zone proximate to each electrode of the plurality of electrodes to create a necrotic zone in the treatment zone, wherein application of the direct current is substantially non-thermal; and stopping the application of the direct current to the treatment zone once the necrotic zone corresponds to the treatment zone shape.