Reliability of Local Activation Waves Features to Characterize Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation Substrate during Sinus Rhythm

Abstract

Analysis of coronary sinus (CS) electrograms (EGMs) is vastly used for the assessment of the atrial fibrillation (AF) substrate. As a catheter consists of five dipoles (dis-tal, mid-distal, medial, mid-proximal, proximal), results may vary upon the employed channel: myocardial contraction and bad contact are unavoidable factors affecting the recording. This work aims to specify the most reliable channels in catching AF dynamics, using 44 multichannel bipolar CS recordings in sinus rhythm (SR) of paroxys-mal AF with 1-5 minutes duration. Local activation waves (LAWs) were detected and main features obtained: duration, amplitude, area and correlation between dominant morphologies of each channel. Analysis was performed with Kruskal-Wallis test for multichannel comparison and Mann-Whitney U-test for pairs of channels and comparison between one and the remaining channels, using Bonferroni correction. Median values were calculated. Distal channel presented the highest alteration in LAWs features, being the least correlated channel (82.84 - 88.31%) with the lowest amplitude and area (Pmax < 0.01). Contrastly, medial and mid-proximal channels showed the most robust LAW characteristics, with very high correlation (94.53%) and high area and amplitude values (Pmax < 0.02 and Pmax < 0.07, respectively) and their analysis is recommended for AF substrate characterization during SR.