Apparatus for testing a cardiac catheter utilizing live cardiac cells

A cardiac catheter testing system comprising:

• a vessel housing:
• in vitro live cardiac tissue comprising cardiac cells proliferating on a scaffold in the vessel, the scaffold comprising a biomaterial,
• a cardiac catheter in the vessel and having one or more recording electrodes in contact with the live cardiac tissue, the cardiac catheter being removable from the vessel, and
• one or more pacing electrodes within the vessel and in electrical communication with the live cardiac tissue;
• an electrical pulse generator outside of the vessel and electrically connected to the one or more pacing electrodes, the electrical pulse generator configured to provide electrical pulses to the live cardiac tissue to thereby create one or more known wave patterns in the live cardiac tissue;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• process pacing electrode signals from the one or more pacing electrodes indicative of the one or more known wave patterns in the live cardiac tissue,
• process recording electrode signals from the one or more recording electrodes of the cardiac catheter, the recording electrode signals indicative of one or more detected wave patterns detected by the one or more recording electrodes of the cardiac catheter, and
• display a visual perception of attributes of the one or more known wave patterns and attributes of the one or more detected wave patterns on a display to enable comparison of the attributes of the one or more detected wave patterns and the attributes of the one or more known wave patterns to determine accuracy of the one or more detected wave patterns.

A method of testing operational accuracy of a cardiac catheter under conditions replicating a beating heart, the method comprising:

• removably inserting the cardiac catheter into a vessel housing:
• in vitro live cardiac tissue comprising cardiac cells proliferating on a scaffold in the vessel, the scaffold comprising a biomaterial, and
• one or more pacing electrodes within the vessel and in electrical communication with the live cardiac tissue, the cardiac catheter being in contact with the live cardiac tissue in the vessel;
• delivering electrical pacing pulses to the live cardiac tissue from an electrical pulse generator outside the vessel, the electrical pulse generator being electrically connected to the one or more pacing electrodes, the electrical pacing pulses creating one or more wave patterns in the live cardiac tissue;
• recording attributes of the one or more wave patterns of the live cardiac tissue using one or more recording electrodes of the cardiac catheter;
• and
• determining the operational accuracy of the cardiac catheter from the one or more wave patterns recorded by the one or more recording electrodes of the cardiac catheter.