Signal processing techniques for atrial fibrillation source detection

Abstract

In clinical practice, Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common and critical cardiac arrhythmia encountered. The treatment that can ensure permanent AF removal is catheter ablation, where cardiologists destroy the affected cardiac muscle cells with RF or Laser. In this procedure it is necessary to know exactly from which part of the heart AF triggers are originated. Various signal processing algorithms provide a strong tool to track AF sources. This study proposes, signal processing techniques that can be exploited for characterization, analysis and source detection of AF signals. These algorithms are implemented on Electrocardiogram (ECG) and intracardiac signals which contain important information that allows the analysis of anatomic and physiologic aspects of the whole cardiac muscle.