Figure 3.

Lesion shapes for 50 W/10 s and 90 W/4 s ablation procedures, with (protection) and without (control) proactive esophageal cooling. Left-sided images show the case after the RF pulse and right-sided images show the case after 90 seconds, allowing for the effects of thermal latency. Thermal injury is not seen in the fat layer since the fraction of damage incurred by fat is lower than that of myocardial or esophageal tissue, which is a consequence of tissue parameters incorporated into the Arrhenius equation reflecting relative resistance of adipocytes to thermal insult. Reproduced from Montoya, et al.⁷⁴ RF = radiofrequency.