Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy (ARVD/C) is predominantly an inherited cardiomyopathy with typical histopathological characteristics of fibro-fatty infiltration mainly involving the right ventricular (RV) inflow tract, RV outflow tract, and RV apex in the majority of patients. The above pathologic evolution frequently brings patients with ARVD/C to medical attention owing to the manifestation of syncope, sudden cardiac death (SCD), ventricular arrhythmogenesis, or heart failure. To prevent future or recurrent SCD, an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) is highly desirable in patients with ARVD/C who had experienced unexplained syncope, hemodynamically intolerable ventricular tachycardia (VT), ventricular fibrillation, and/or aborted SCD. Notably, the management of frequent ventricular tachyarrhythmias in ARVD/C is challenging, and the use of antiarrhythmic drugs could be unsatisfactory or limited by the unfavorable side effects. Therefore, radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA) has been implemented to treat the drug-refractory VT in ARVD/C for decades. However, the initial understanding of the link between fibro-fatty pathogenesis and ventricular arrhythmogenesis in ARVD/C is scarce, the efficacy and prognosis of endocardial RFCA alone were limited and disappointing. The electrophysiologists had broken through this frontier after better illustration of epicardial substrates and broadly application of epicardial approaches in ARVD/C. In recent works of literature, the application of epicardial ablation also successfully results in higher procedural success and decreases VT recurrences in patients with ARVD/C who are refractory to the endocardial approach during long-term follow-up. In this article, we review the important evolution on the delineation of arrhythmogenic substrates, ablation strategies, and ablation outcome of VT in patients with ARVD/C.
Anti-Arrhythmia Agents ; Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia ; Cardiomyopathies ; Catheter Ablation ; Catheters ; Death, Sudden, Cardiac ; Defibrillators ; Epicardial Mapping ; Follow-Up Studies ; Heart Failure ; Humans ; Prognosis ; Recurrence ; Syncope ; Tachycardia ; Tachycardia, Ventricular ; Ventricular Fibrillation

For over 3 decades, it has been known that reentry circuits for ventricular tachycardia (VT) are not limited to the subendocardial myocardium. Rather, intramural or subepicardial substrates may also give rise to VT, particularly in those with non-ischemic cardiomyopathy. Percutaneous epicardial mapping and ablation has been successfully introduced for the treatment of such subepicardial VT. Herein, we review the indications for epicardial ablation and the identification of epicardial VT by electrocardiographic and imaging modalities. We also discuss the optimal technique for epicardial access and the implications of epicardial fat which has the potential to mimic scar, decreasing the specificity of electrogram morphology and impeding energy delivery to the tissue. Finally, we also report on possible complications of the procedure and strategies to mitigate adverse events.
Cardiomyopathies ; Catheter Ablation ; Cicatrix ; Electrocardiography ; Epicardial Mapping ; Myocardium ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Tachycardia, Ventricular

If heart function is normal, the atrial cells are excited in a stable rhythm. But this would change during atrial fibrillation. In this paper, after comparing with the method of characteristic point, we use the dominant frequency method to analyze the activation pattern under sinus and atrial fibrillation rhythm in different parts of atria based on epicardial mapping system. It is found that the activation rhythm changes a lot in different parts of atria, and the automaticity of atrial cells change obviously in somewhere. The result shows that dominant frequency method is very suitable for the analysis of atrial fibrillation signal. What's more, we also roughly discuss the role of this method in exploring the driving sources during atrial fibrillation.
Atrial Fibrillation ; Epicardial Mapping ; Heart Atria ; Humans

This paper introduces an adaptive filtering algorithm based on the LMS principle to inhibit the ventricular interference in the atrial epicardial mapping experiments.
Algorithms ; Electrocardiography ; Epicardial Mapping ; Heart Ventricles

In order to realize real-time sampling and display in 128-channeled Epicardial Mapping System whose sampling frequency is 2 kHz per channel, the article introduces a mapping software and preliminarily validates its practicability. The software is designed in MFC, using multiple-thread technology and buffering and pumping values method.
Epicardial Mapping ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Software ; Software Design

This paper discusses the law of atrial electrical activity propagation (the timing of signal and the conduction velocity) under the sinus rhythm before and after AF caused by high-frequency electrical stimulation. The paper analyzes how different doses of acetylcholine affect the conductivity of the atrial cells of dogs. This result can also help the diagnoses and treatment of human's AF.
Acetylcholine ; pharmacology ; Animals ; Dogs ; Epicardial Mapping ; Heart Atria ; cytology ; drug effects ; physiopathology ; Mechanotransduction, Cellular

Catheter Ablation ; methods ; Child ; Epicardial Mapping ; Female ; Heart Aneurysm ; complications ; surgery ; Humans ; Tachycardia, Ventricular ; complications ; surgery

Adult ; Electrocardiography ; methods ; Epicardial Mapping ; Humans ; Male ; Tachycardia, Ventricular ; physiopathology

A new denoising method is presented in the paper, based on the independent component analysis(ICA) and the noise independent component selection measurement which is the dispersivity of the independent component's projection coefficients to each electrode. The results indicate that the method can denoise EPM signals with giving prominence to electrodes' true depolarization signals. So it' s fit well for the EPM system.
Electrodes ; Epicardial Mapping ; methods ; Membrane Potentials ; Pericardium ; physiology

This paper presents an algorithm for data interpolation and approximation used in the whole atria mapping. Multilevel B-splines are introduced to compute the whole atria surface through a set of irregularly spaced points and to draw the 3D isopotential map, which can reflect the conduction process of depolarization in complex arrhythmia such as atrial fibrillation.
Algorithms ; Electrocardiography ; Epicardial Mapping ; Models, Cardiovascular ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted