The signal averaged P wave in atrioventricular block—evidence for abnormal atrial conduction?

The incidence of atrial fibrillation in patients with atrioventricular block (AVB) appears increased over that for the unpaced population even if atrioventricular synchrony is maintained by dual chamber pacing. To assess whether atrial fibrillation in these patients might be due to concurrent abnorm...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of cardiology 1998-01, Vol.63 (2), p.155-159
Main Authors: Stafford, Peter J, Cooper, Joanne, Baker, Stephanie, deBono, David P, Vincent, Richard, Garratt, Clifford J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Atrial Fibrillation - diagnosis
Atrial Fibrillation - etiology
Atrial Function - physiology
Atrioventricular block
Biological and medical sciences
Cardiac dysrhythmias
Cardiac pacing
Cardiology. Vascular system
Confidence Intervals
Electrocardiography
Female
Heart
Heart Block - complications
Heart Block - diagnosis
Heart Block - therapy
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
P Wave
Pacemaker, Artificial
Predictive Value of Tests
Reference Values
Sensitivity and Specificity
Signal averaging
Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The incidence of atrial fibrillation in patients with atrioventricular block (AVB) appears increased over that for the unpaced population even if atrioventricular synchrony is maintained by dual chamber pacing. To assess whether atrial fibrillation in these patients might be due to concurrent abnormality in atrial activation we performed signal averaged P wave (SAPW) recordings in 15 patients with dual chamber pacemakers implanted for AVB and compared the results to those from 21 unpaced controls. The median (range) age was 69 (53–89) years for patients and 60 (51–78) years for controls. Eleven patients and 12 controls were male. All patients were pacing in VDD mode at the time of study. SAPW recordings were obtained using our previously reported selective P wave averaging system. We measured P wave duration after high pass filtering at 40 Hz, the rate of change of P wave voltage over time (spatial velocity) and low and high frequency spectral energy after Fourier transformation of the P wave signal. We found increased P wave duration, mean spatial velocity and lower frequency energy in patients with AVB compared to controls [duration, 144 (5) vs. 134 (2) ms, p
ISSN:0167-5273
1874-1754
DOI:10.1016/S0167-5273(97)00281-7