Detecting atrial fibrillation using spatial precision

Discusses measuring local activation direction variability using short segment lengths to quickly differentiate fibrillation from regular rhythms. It is concluded that the spatial precision of local activation direction shows promise as a potential discriminator of atrial fibrillation from regular atrial rhythms. For the authors' study set, excellent discrimination of atrial fibrillation from regular rhythms was achieved by spatial precision using segment lengths as short as 20 activations. The authors would expect that this method would be even more accurate using permanently implanted electrodes and could be implemented in real-time using four-electrode elements, and may be applicable in the ventricle as well.