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

January 24-31, 1998
Marilleva, Trento, Italy

RT-188

Prediction of early atrial fibrillation relapse after endocavitary electrical cardioversion by frequency analysis of signal averaged P wave

Antonio Michelucci, Luigi Padeletti, Maria Cristina Porciani, Paolo Pieragnoli, Marco Frati, Silvio Vena, Andrea Colella, Gian Franco Gensini.
Istituto di Clinica Medica Generale e Cardiologia, Universita di Firenze, Italy

Introduction

The risk of recurrence of atrial fibrillation is high in the first days after electrical cardioversion^1,2 and predictors of recurrences, with an acceptable positive or negative predictive value, are not clearly established so far. In a previous study³ we evidenced that P wave signal-averaging (by frequency analysis) is efficacious in identifying retrospectively patients with high frequency of atrial fibrillation attacks or in other words with a higher propensity to develop the arrhythmia. Thus we decided to test this method as a predictor of arrhythmia susceptibility in a prospective study on patients who undergo endocavitary electrical cardioversion.