Patent ID: 8545409

Claim:
A system for ablation with acoustic feedback, the system comprising: a catheter which includes an elongated catheter body extending longitudinally between a proximal end and a distal end along a longitudinal axis; at least one ablation element disposed in a distal portion which is adjacent the distal end of the catheter body to ablate a targeted tissue region outside the catheter body; and a pulse-echo ultrasonic transducer disposed in the distal portion and arranged to emit and receive an acoustic beam along a centroid in a beam direction, at a transducer beam angle of between about 30 degrees and about 60 degrees relative to a distal direction of the longitudinal axis at a location of intersection between the longitudinal axis and the beam direction of the centroid of the acoustic beam of the ultrasonic transducer, wherein the pulse-echo ultrasonic transducer transmits and receives acoustic pulses to provide lesion information in the targeted tissue region being ablated; an ablation power subsystem to provide ablation power to the at least one ablation element; an ultrasonic transmit and receive subsystem to operate the pulse-echo ultrasonic transducer to transmit and receive acoustic pulses; a control subsystem which includes a processor and one or more modules executable by the processor to control operation of the ablation power subsystem and the ultrasonic transmit and receive subsystem; and a display to display information including the lesion information; wherein the one or more modules include a transducer detection information processing module to process transducer detected information from the pulse-echo ultrasonic transducer and to provide feedback, based on the processed transducer detected information, to be used to monitor or control ablation by the at least one ablation element; wherein the transducer detected information includes a detected lesion depth along a beam emanation direction; and wherein the transducer detection information processing module includes a lesion depth correction module which converts the detected lesion depth along the beam direction to a corrected lesion depth in a normal direction which is perpendicular to the tissue surface in contact with the at least one ablation element.