Friday, June 7, 2019

Phase Mapping vs. Electrogram-Based Mapping in Ablation


Sanjiv M. Narayan, MD, PhD, is a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University in California, where he researches bioengineering techniques for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. A former professor of medicine at UC San Diego, cardiologist Sanjiv Narayan is a member of several other research teams as well, focused on advancing understanding of atrial fibrillation (AF).

One such team published a study in Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology, a peer-reviewed journal, entitled, “Comparison of phase mapping and electrogram-based driver mapping for catheter ablation in atrial fibrillation.” Ablation is a procedure that scars or destroys the heart tissue that allows incorrect electrical signals to be sent to the heart and cause atrial fibrillation. 

After studying 175 articles in the PubMed database, the researchers concluded that one specific method of ablation (driver-guided) showed better outcomes than standard ablation therapies. Additionally, the researchers found that phase mapping is better for guiding ablation than electrogram-based mapping. This supports many studies of AF driver based ablation by many techniques.