| 1. |
- Corino, Valentina D.A., et al.
(författare)
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Clinical use and limitations of non-invasive electrophysiological tests in patients with atrial fibrillation
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Atrial Fibrillation. - 1941-6911. ; 9:1, s. 62-67
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a complex arrhythmia, that has been studied non-invasively assessing atrial refractory period, atrioventricular node (AV) node refractory period, and ventricular response. The AV node plays a fundamental role as it filters many of the numerous irregular atrial impulses bombarding the node. Despite its importance, the electrophysiological (EP) characteristics of the AV node are not routinely evaluated since conventional EP techniques for assessment of refractory period or conduction velocity of the AV node are not applicable in AF. Since rate-control drugs control ventricular response through their effect on the AV node, noninvasive assessment of AV node electrophysiology may be useful. The RR series, though being highly irregular, contains information that can be used for risk stratification and prediction of outcome. In particular, RR irregularity measures during AF have been shown to be related to clinical outcome. This paper reviews the attempts done to noninvasively characterize the AV node and the ventricular response, highlighting clinical applications and limitations of the noninvasive techniques.
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| 2. |
- Corino, Valentina D. A., et al.
(författare)
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Noninvasive Assessment of Atrioventricular Nodal Function: Effect of Rate-Control Drugs during Atrial Fibrillation
- 2015
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Ingår i: Annals of Noninvasive Electrocardiology. - : Wiley. - 1082-720X. ; 20:6, s. 534-541
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: During atrial fibrillation (AF), conventional electrophysiological techniques for assessment of refractory period or conduction velocity of the atrioventricular (AV) node cannot be used. We aimed at evaluating changes in AV nodal properties during administration of tecadenoson and esmolol using a novel ECG-based method. Methods: Fourteen patients (age 58 +/- 8 years, 10 men) with AF were randomly assigned to either 75 or 300 mu g intravenous tecadenoson. After tecadenoson wash-out, patients received esmolol continuously (100 mu g/kg per min for 10 mins, then 50 mu g/kg per min for 50 mins). Atrial fibrillatory rate (AFR) and heart rate (HR) were assessed in 15-min segments. Using the novel method, we assessed the absolute refractory periods of the slow and fast pathways (aRPs and aRPf) of the AV node to produce an estimate of the functional refractory period. Results: During esmolol infusion, AFR and HR were significantly decreased and the absolute refractory period was significantly prolonged in both pathways (aRPs: 387 +/- 73 vs 409 +/- 62 ms, P < 0.05; aRPf: 490 +/- 80 vs 529 +/- 58 ms, P < 0.05). During both tecadenoson doses, HR decreased significantly and AFR was unchanged. Both aRPs and aRPf were prolonged for a 75 mu g dose (aRPs: 322 +/- 97 vs 476 +/- 75 ms, P < 0.05; aRPf: 456 +/- 102 vs 512 +/- 55 ms, P < 0.05) whereas a trend toward prolongation was observed for a 300 mu g dose. Conclusions: The estimated parameters reflect expected changes in AV nodal properties, i.e., slower conduction through the AV node for tecadenoson and prolongation of the AV node refractory period for esmolol. Thus, the proposed approach may be used to assess drug effects on the AV node in AF patients.
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| 3. |
- Corino, Valentina D A, et al.
(författare)
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Noninvasive characterization of atrioventricular conduction in patients with atrial fibrillation.
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Electrocardiology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1532-8430 .- 0022-0736. ; 48:6, s. 938-942
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The atrioventricular (AV) node plays a fundamental role in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), acting as a filter to the numerous irregular atrial impulses which bombard the node. A phenomenological approach to better understand AV nodal electrophysiology is to analyze the ventricular response with respect to irregularity. In different cohorts of AF patients, such analysis has been performed with the aim to evaluate the association between ventricular response characteristics and long-term clinical outcome and to determine whether irregularity is affected by rate-control drugs. Another approach to studying AV nodal characteristics is to employ a mathematical model which accounts for the refractory periods of the two AV nodal pathways. With atrial fibrillatory rate and RR intervals as input, the model has been considered for analyzing data during (i) rest and head-up tilt test, (ii) tecadenoson and esmolol, and (iii) rate-control drugs. The present paper provides an overview of our recent work on the characterization and assessment of AV nodal conduction using these two approaches.
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| 4. |
- Corino, Valentina D. A., et al.
(författare)
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Rate-Control Drugs Affect Variability and Irregularity Measures of RR Intervals in Patients with Permanent Atrial Fibrillation
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology. - : Wiley. - 1540-8167 .- 1045-3873. ; 26:2, s. 137-141
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Heart Rate Variability and Irregularity During AF IntroductionIrregularity measures have been suggested as risk indicators in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF); however, it is not known to what extent they are affected by commonly used rate-control drugs. We aimed at evaluating the effect of metoprolol, carvedilol, diltiazem, and verapamil on the variability and irregularity of the ventricular response in patients with permanent AF. Methods and ResultsSixty patients with permanent AF were part of an investigator-blind cross-over study, comparing 4 rate-control drugs (diltiazem, verapamil, metoprolol, and carvedilol). We analyzed five 20-minute segments per patient: baseline and the 4 drug regimens. On every segment, heart rate (HR) variability and irregularity of RR series were computed. The variability was assessed as standard deviation, pNN20, pNN50, pNN80, and rMSSD. The irregularity was assessed by regularity index, approximate (ApEn), and sample entropy. A significantly lower HR was obtained with all drugs, the HR was lowest using the calcium channel blockers. All drugs increased the variability of ventricular response in respect to baseline (as an example, rMSSD: baseline 171 47 milliseconds, carvedilol 229 +/- 58 milliseconds; P < 0.05 vs. baseline, metoprolol 226 +/- 66 milliseconds; P < 0.05 vs. baseline, verapamil 228 +/- 84; P < 0.05 vs. baseline, diltiazem 256 +/- 87 milliseconds; P < 0.05 vs. baseline and all other drugs). Only -blockers significantly increased the irregularity of the RR series (as an example, ApEn: baseline 1.86 +/- 0.13, carvedilol 1.92 +/- 0.09; P < 0.05 vs. baseline, metoprolol 1.93 +/- 0.08; P < 0.05 vs. baseline, verapamil 1.86 +/- 0.22 ns, diltiazem 1.88 +/- 0.16 ns). ConclusionModification of AV node conduction by rate-control drugs increase RR variability, while only -blockers affect irregularity.
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| 5. |
- Iozzia, L., et al.
(författare)
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Atrial Impulses at the Atrioventricular Node: Arrival versus Conduction during Atrial Fibrillation
- 2015
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Ingår i: 16th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Engineering. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 9783319129662 - 9783319129679 ; , s. 100-103
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The atrioventricular (AV) node plays a central role during atrial fibrillation (AF).We have recently proposed a statistical AV node model defined by parameters characterizing the arrival rate of atrial impulses, the probability of an impulse choosing the slower of the two AV nodal pathways, the refractory periods of the pathways, and the prolongation of refractory periods. All model parameters are estimated from the RR series using maximum likelihood estimation, except for the mean arrival rate of atrial impulses which is estimated by the AF frequency derived from the f-waves. The aim of this study is to assess the relationship between the probability γ of an atrial impulse to arrive at the slow pathway with the probability α (used in the model) of an impulse to pass through that pathway. A theoretical equation was derived to relate α with γ and viceversa, highlighting the dependence on both refractory periods and their prolongation. Results based on simulations show that the equation was correct, with an average absolute error of 0.0034 ± 0.0008.
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