Aravindan Kolandaivelu
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Medicine & Clinical Research
Atrial fibrillation (Afib) is a common irregular heartbeat that is hard to manage. Catheter ablation keeps patients in normal rhythm better than drugs.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
atrial fibrillation
Afib
catheter ablation
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Test whether native-contrast T1-weighted MRI, an imaging method that shows permanent ablation scars without injected dye, can detect sites of incomplete atrial fibrillation ablation.
- Determine whether this MRI method can guide additional catheter ablation to sites of incomplete lesions during the procedure, scanning repeatedly because no contrast agent is needed.
- Test whether native-contrast T1-weighted MRI can confirm that ablation is complete at the end of the procedure, translating the method from animal studies to patients undergoing atrial fibrillation ablation.
More about the research
In this procedure, a thin tube threaded into the heart creates small scars, or lesions, that block faulty electrical signals. Yet about half of ablations for persistent Afib fail. A key reason is that temporary injury and swelling can make ablation look complete at the end of the procedure. As that injury heals over days to weeks, the arrhythmia returns. Current methods cannot tell permanent lesions from temporary injury.
Why it matters
Many patients with atrial fibrillation need repeat ablation because the first procedure leaves gaps that heal over time. A contrast-free MRI that shows permanent lesions during the procedure could let doctors find and fix those gaps before the patient leaves. This could reduce arrhythmia recurrence and repeat procedures, and may later help patients with other arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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Compare 4D flow MRI measures of left atrial appendage blood stasis and other atrial cardiopathy markers across patients with embolic stroke of undetermined source, AF-related stroke, AF alone, and neither.
The school
Johns Hopkins University: 100 labs on PI Pages, $4.1B a year on research, 622 research doctorates a year.
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