13th International Congress
THE "NEW FRONTIERS"
OF ARRHYTHMIAS 1998

January 24-31, 1998
Marilleva, Trento, Italy

RT-178

Proposal for a new classification of atrial tachycardias. A substrate-based approach in the ablation era

Michael D. Lesh, Jonathan M. Kalman*.
Department of Medicine and the Cardiovascular Research Institute University of California, San Francisco, USA, *Department of Cardiology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

Introduction

Development of curative radiofrequency ablation for a variety of atrial arrhythmias has paralleled an increase in interest in these arrhythmias in man. However, the field of atrial arrhythmology is filled with a confusing array of terminology. This brief review will propose a new classification schema for atrial arrhythmias taking into account the anatomic substrate of the arrhythmia and hence the approach to radiofrequency ablation required.