AUTOMATED-ANALYSIS OF INTRACARDIAC ELECTROGRAMS OBTAINED DURING EXTRASTIMULUS TESTS USING A 3-DIMENSIONAL ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY MODEL

Catheter ablation procedures are performed by highly trained and exper ienced cardiology subspecialists. Yet the massive amount of data produ ced during these procedures creates a data overload problem that can i mpede the performance of even the best practitioners. This may be evid enced by (1) overlooking important signal features, (2) misinterpretin g the signals, and (3) misinterpreting catheter locations in the heart , all of which can lead to increased procedure duration, applications of radiofrequency energy to the wrong part of the heart, or both. This article presents the first results from a project aimed at developing a model-based system for interpreting intracardiac electrograms in ne ar real time. The system is intended to assist physicians in interpret ing the enormous amounts of data recorded during catheter ablation stu dies. It is an extension of the Einthoven system that has been extende d to account for the three-dimensional relationships in the cardiac co nduction system as recorded in the various intracardiac electrograms. The new three-dimensional cardiac conduction model and the enhancement s to Einthoven's reasoning algorithms are presented. The focus of this study is on interpreting the results of ventricular extrastimulus tes ts. Data collected for this study and the output generated by the syst em are presented.