© 2000 by European Society of Cardiology
Detection of inter-atrial conduction defects with unfiltered signal-averaged P-wave ECG in patients with lone atrial fibrillation
Department of Cardiology, Lund University Lund, Sweden; 1Research Institute of Cardiology St. Petersburg, Russia
AIMS: To demonstrate a possible inter-atrial conduction delay in patients with lone paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) using ‘unfiltered’ signal-averaged P-wave ECG (PSAECG) and compare these results with those obtained with conventional filter settings.
METHODS AND RESULTS: Twenty one patients with lone PAF and 20 healthy volunteers (control group) were enrolled in the study. An orthogonal lead surface ECG was high-pass filtered at 0·8 Hz, averaged with template matching, and combined into a spatial magnitude (‘unfiltered’ technique). Results were compared with conventionally filtered (40–300 Hz) PSAECG. The filtered technique revealed no differences in P-wave duration between the two groups (121±12 vs 128±15 ms, control and PAF groups respectively, ns). Double-peaked P-wave spatial magnitudes (interpeak distance >30 ms) were revealed in 11 of 21 PAF patients but only in two of 18 controls (P<0·01). The nadir in the spatial magnitude was located significantly later in the PAF group (114±13 vs 103±9 ms,P <0·01).
CONCLUSION: ‘Unfiltered’ PSAECG revealed significant differences in orthogonal P-wave morphology in patients with lone PAF, indicating the possibility of an inter-atrial conduction delay, while conventional P-wave duration analysis failed to discriminate between the two groups.
Key Words: Signal-averaged P-wave ECG, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, inter-atrial conduction
Correspondence: Pyotr G. Platonov, MD Department of Cardiology, University Hospital, SE-221 85 Lund, Sweden.
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