Assessment of Atrial Fibrillation Organization During Internal Electrical Cardioversion Using Sample Entropy

Predicting non-invasively the effectiveness of a shock on Internal Electrical Cardio version (IECV) is clinically relevant to enhance step-up voltage protocols in the treatment of Persistent Atrial Fibrillation (PAF). The present study assess the ability of a non-linear index, such as sample entropy (SampEn), to follow-up noninvasively AF organization under successive attempts of IECV and to predict the effectiveness of every single shock. Results showed a SampEn significant difference just after the first attempt in successful vs. unsuccessful patients (0.0398 ± 0.0139) vs. (0.0608 ± 0.0221) p = 0.0094, indicating that probably first shock plays the most important role in the procedure.