title: Systematic comparison of non-invasive measures for the assessment of atrial fibrillation complexity: a step forward towards standardization of atrial fibrillation electrogram analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To present a comparison of electrocardiogram-based non-invasive measures of atrial fibrillation (AF) substrate complexity computed on invasive animal recordings to discriminate between short-term and long-term AF. The final objective is the selection of an optimal sub-set of measures for AF complexity assessment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  High-density epicardial direct contact mapping recordings (234 leads) were acquired from the right and the left atria of 17 goats in which AF was induced for 3 weeks (short-term AF group, N = 10) and 6 months (long-term AF group, N = 7). Several non-invasive measures of AF organization proposed in the literature in the last decade were investigated to assess their power in discriminating between the short-term and long-term group. The best performing measures were identified, which when combined attained a correct classification rate of 100%. Their ability to predict standard invasive AF complexity measures was also tested, showing an average R(2) of 0.73 ± 0.04.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  An optimal set of measures of the AF substrate complexity was identified out of the set of non-invasive measures analysed in this study. These measures may contribute to improve patient-tailored diagnosis and therapy of sustained AF.
authors.affiliation: Department of Knowledge Engineering, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands pietro.bonizzi@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bonizzi
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Stef
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zeemering
authors.affiliation: Department of Knowledge Engineering, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Joël M H
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Karel
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Luigi Y
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Di Marco
authors.affiliation: Applied Signal Processing Group, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL STI GR-SCI-STI SCI-STI-JMV, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Uldry
authors.affiliation: Applied Signal Processing Group, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL STI GR-SCI-STI SCI-STI-JMV, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jérôme
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Van Zaen
authors.affiliation: Applied Signal Processing Group, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL STI GR-SCI-STI SCI-STI-JMV, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jean-Marc
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Vesin
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Schotten
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001281:Atrial Fibrillation / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004562:Electrocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D022062:Electrophysiologic Techniques, Cardiac / Q000379:methods; D056149:Epicardial Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D006041:Goats
keywords: Atrial fibrillation; Complexity measures; High-density epicardial electrode mapping; Induced AF in goat; Substrate complexity