title: Effect of rates of perfusion on dominant frequency and defibrillation energy in isolated fibrillating hearts.
abstract: This study assessed the influence of rates of reperfusion on excitability of the myocardium using dominant frequency (DF) (in Hz) of VF and the relationship of DF to the minimum defibrillation energy (MDE) (in J). Our hypothesis was that increasing flow during reperfusion increases DF that raises MDE. Initially, six Langendorff perfused swine hearts were serially fibrillated and perfusion arrested for 4 minutes followed by reperfusion and defibrillation to establish reproducibility of the model. The epicardial ECG was analyzed for DF. In subsequent studies (n = 8), no flow VF was followed by 1-minute reperfusion at normal flow or 10% flow (low flow) and shocked with increasing energy via epicardial pads until defibrillation. The DF at onset of no flow VF was 9.5 +/- 1.4 and decreased to 3.6 +/- 1.4 after 4 minutes. Reperfusion at normal flow increased the DF of VF compared to low flow after 1 minute (10.8 +/- 1.1 vs 4.5 +/- 1.1 Hz, P = 0.0002) and was associated with increased defibrillation energy requirements (13.5 +/- 5.0 vs 7.3 +/- 6.2 J, P = 0.047). In summary, defibrillation energy requirements are lower when myocardial excitability is reduced during low flow reperfusion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. cbarton@itsa.ucsf.edu
authors.forename: C W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Barton
authors.forename: W E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Cascio
authors.forename: D N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Batson
authors.forename: C L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Engle
authors.forename: T A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D003326:Coronary Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004554:Electric Countershock; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005260:Female; D006324:Heart Arrest, Induced; D006339:Heart Rate; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008297:Male; D017202:Myocardial Ischemia / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D015425:Myocardial Reperfusion; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013552:Swine; D014693:Ventricular Fibrillation / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*