AFR for Ablation Guidance

 It is well known that atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia that requires treatment in clinical practice. Furthermore, AF adds to the progression of common associated heart conditions such as heart failure, hypertension, and ischemic heart disease. Despite the impact of AF on human health, the selection of efficient treatment options is still limited. Long-term efficiency of pharmacological therapy to prevent relapses of AF is far from being completely reliable. Relatively narrow indications for the use of approved potent antiarrhythmic drugs and the risk of potentially life threatening side effects complicates the selection of treatment. When antiarrhythmic drugs are not a successful option to treat AF, electric isolation of the automatic atrial foci, mostly located in the vicinity of the pulmonary veins, remains as an invasive therapeutic option. Although ablation techniques have been developed to isolate arrhythmogenic substrates in the left atrium, the risk of recurrent AF over the first year is significant. Thus, many patients continue to require antiarrhythmic drug therapy even after AF ablation.

Frequency analysis of AF has emerged as a non-invasive tool for assessment of Atrial Fibrillatory Rate (AFR) and shown its value as a non-invasive tool for assessment of atrial electrophysiology. Initial studies have indicated that AFR can be associated with procedural success of catheter ablation in patients with long-standing persistent AF. An AFR value of ~430 FPM was associated with therapeutic success for this particular patient group [3].

Please click here to see how AFR changes during a catheter ablation for AF.