SIGIL: Signal Interpretation and Analysis In Real Life Cardiac Arrhythmias

Cardiac arrhythmias are a common clinical problem in cardiology. Often, such arrhythmias can be effectively and permanently treated through catheter ablation.

A key technology enabling the success of catheter ablation is activation mapping of cardiac arrhythmias. This refers to the construction of maps which depict the sequential activation of the cardiac chamber of interest. It is a fundamental electrophysiology technique, but at the same time, the principles behind activation map construction have not changed for decades.

In brief, the way activation maps are constructed nowadays consists of the following steps:

(i) Sequential acquisition of voltage signals throughout the cardiac chamber of interest, recording both the signal together with the location of the signal in 3D space (ii) Local activation time annotation of each of the acquired signals in relation to a so-called timing reference (iii) Depiction of the annotated activation time graphically as a so-called activation map, through which the mechanism of the arrhythmia can be understood and an appropriate ablation target chosen

Following assignment of the LAT to each individual signal, the map is complete and can be used to discern the arrhythmia circuit to choose an appropriate ablation target.