Dynamic Analysis of Cardiac Rhythms for Discriminating Atrial Fibrillation from Lethal Ventricular Arrhythmias

CIRCEP: May 16, 2013

Background—Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), the first-line of therapy for preventing sudden cardiac death in high-risk patients, deliver “appropriate” shocks for termination of ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation (VT/VF). A common shortcoming of ICDs is imperfect rhythm discrimination, resulting in the delivery of “inappropriate” shocks for atrial fibrillation (AF). An underexplored area for rhythm discrimination is the difference in dynamic properties between AF and VT/VF. We hypothesized that the higher entropy of rapid cardiac rhythms preceding ICD shocks distinguishes AF from VT/VF.  Read more