Advances in Non-invasive Electrocardiographic Imaging: Examples of Atrial Arrhythmias

Atrial arrhythmias, and in particular atrial fibrillation (AF), are the most common cardiac rhythm disorders. Improved diagnosis and treatment of atrial arrhythmias require understanding of their mechanisms in humans. This requires simultaneous continuous mapping of activation in both atria with sufficient spatial resolution and over sufficiently long time windows. This is particularly essential for AF, where the activation sequence is constantly dynamically changing. electrocardiographic imaging (ECGI; also called electrocardiographic mapping, ECM) is a non-invasive imaging modality for cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmias developed in our laboratory; it provides continuous three-dimensional maps of cardiac activation and repolarization on the epicardial surface of the heart non-invasively. This chapter compiles ECGI data from previously published reports of various types of atrial arrhythmias. Examples include typical and atypical atrial flutter, atrial tachycardia, and different types of AF as defined clinically. This edition first published 2013