Assessment of Renal Artery Ablation Efficacy Based on Intravascular Ultrasound

Abstract

Aiming at the problems that existing Renal Denervation (RDN) systems cannot evaluate ablation depth and whether renal sympathetic nerves are ablated, and that the Renal Nerve Stimulation (RNS) method has not entered the clinical application stage, this study proposes a method to assess the success of renal artery ablation surgery based on intravascular ultrasound observation. Leveraging the advantages of ultrasound in nerve imaging and the application characteristics of intravascular ultrasound, a 40 MHz high-frequency ultrasound imaging transducer and an ultrasonic ablation transducer were used. First, the transducer parameters were tested to ensure performance compliance. Subsequently, ultrasound imaging was performed on isolated porcine renal arteries to clarify the ultrasonic morphological characteristics of single renal sympathetic nerves, and ultrasound image changes before and after ablation were compared. On this basis, by observing post-ablation nerve image changes, the criteria for judging the feasibility and safety of ultrasonic ablation of renal artery sympathetic nerves were determined, which were then used to assess surgical success. Results show that the proposed method can clearly identify renal sympathetic nerves and has unique advantages in observing ablation effects, providing an effective basis for evaluating surgical implementation.