Fig. 1.

Schematic representation of the in vitro set-up. Myocardial tissue (A) was suspended in a bath with isotonic saline at 37 °C. Flow was created by a pump (B) with flow velocity at the level of the myocardial tissue set at 0.35 m/s. The ablation catheter (C) was mounted in a holder with a dynamometer (D) to maintain the catheter tip perpendicular to the tissue with a constant contact force of 20 g. The indifferent electrode (E) was placed in the bath and a resistor of 25 Ω (F) was placed between the indifferent electrode and the ablation generator (G).