Design of a single segment conductance catheter for measurement of left ventricular volume

The objective of this paper is to investigate how to best position the sensing electrodes on a single segment conductance catheter, and to calculate the expected performance. Using electrode potential data, obtained with the present five segment conductance catheter in pig experiments, we have interpolated the electrical field at any given point of time, and calculated what volume curve to expect with only two sensing electrodes. Comparison shows that the deviation between our calculated method and the present one is stable and small. Mean deviation with optimized electrode positions was 0.05% per sample, and the maximum deviation found for a single time sample was 2.57%. This indicates that it is possible to build a thin single segment catheter with as good performance as for the present five segment conductance catheter.