St. Jude Medical Inc. today announced U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of its TactiCath Quartz irrigated ablation catheter, which gives physicians a real-time, objective measure of the force that the catheter applies to a patient’s heart wall during an ablation procedure. TactiCath Quartz contact-force technology was designed to provide physicians with more control to modify that force during ablation procedures in order to create more effective lesions for patients being treated for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF). The technology is associated with a reduction in the rate of AF recurrence when optimal treatment measures are used.
