Current Issues and Recent Advances in Pacemaker Therapy

Patients with implanted pacemakers or defibrillators are frequently encountered in various healthcare settings. As these devices may be responsible for, or contribute to a variety of clinically significant issues, familiarity with their function and potential complications facilitates patient management. This book reviews several clinically relevant issues and recent advances of pacemaker therapy: implantation, device follow-up and management of complications. Innovations and research on the frontiers of this technology are also discussed as they may have wider utilization in the future. The book should provide useful information for clinicians involved in the management of patients with implanted antiarrhythmia devices and researchers working in the field of cardiac implants

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationComputational simulation has become an indispensable tool in the study of both basic mechanisms and pathophysiology of all forms of cardiac electrical activity. Because the heart is comprised of approximately 4 billion electrically active cells, it is not possible to geometrically model or computationally simulate each individual cell. As a result computational models of the heart are, of necessity, abstractions that approximate electrical behavior at the cell, tissue, and whole body level. The goal of this PhD dissertation was to evaluate several aspects of these abstractions by exploring a set of modeling approaches in the field of cardiac electrophysiology and to develop means to evaluate both the amplitude of these errors from a purely technical perspective as well as the impacts of those errors in terms of physiological parameters. The first project used subject specific models and experiments with acute myocardial ischemia to show that one common simplification used to model myocardial ischemia-the simplest form of the border zone between healthy and ischemic tissue-was not supported by the experimental results. We propose a alternative approximation of the border zone that better simulates the experimental results. The second study examined the impact of simplifications in geometric models on simulations of cardiac electrophysiology. Such models consist of a connected mesh of polygonal elements and must often capture complex external and internal boundaries. A conforming mesh contains elements that follow closely the shapes of boundaries; nonconforming meshes fit the boundaries only approximately and are easier to construct but their impact on simulation accuracy has, to our knowledge, remained unknown. We evaluated the impact of this simplification on a set of three different forms of bioelectric field simulations. The third project evaluated the impact of an additional geometric modeling error; positional uncertainty of the heart in simulations of the ECG. We applied a relatively novel and highly efficient statistical approach, the generalized Polynomial Chaos-Stochastic Collocation method (gPC-SC), to a boundary element formulation of the electrocardiographic forward problem to carry out the necessary comprehensive sensitivity analysis. We found variations large enough to mask or to mimic signs of ischemia in the ECG

Technology 2000, volume 1

The purpose of the conference was to increase awareness of existing NASA developed technologies that are available for immediate use in the development of new products and processes, and to lay the groundwork for the effective utilization of emerging technologies. There were sessions on the following: Computer technology and software engineering; Human factors engineering and life sciences; Information and data management; Material sciences; Manufacturing and fabrication technology; Power, energy, and control systems; Robotics; Sensors and measurement technology; Artificial intelligence; Environmental technology; Optics and communications; and Superconductivity

Research and technology 1995 annual report

As the NASA Center responsible for assembly, checkout, servicing, launch, recovery, and operational support of Space Transportation System elements and payloads, the John F. Kennedy Space Center is placing increasing emphasis on its advanced technology development program. This program encompasses the efforts of the Engineering Development Directorate laboratories, most of the KSC operations contractors, academia, and selected commercial industries - all working in a team effort within their own areas of expertise. This edition of the Kennedy Space Center Research and Technology 1995 Annual Report covers efforts of all these contributors to the KSC advanced technology development program, as well as technology transfer activities. Major areas of research include environmental engineering, automation, robotics, advanced software, materials science, life sciences, mechanical engineering, nondestructive evaluation, and industrial engineering

Statistical and Graph-Based Signal Processing: Fundamental Results and Application to Cardiac Electrophysiology

The goal of cardiac electrophysiology is to obtain information about the mechanism, function, and performance of the electrical activities of the heart, the identification of deviation from normal pattern and the design of treatments. Offering a better insight into cardiac arrhythmias comprehension and management, signal processing can help the physician to enhance the treatment strategies, in particular in case of atrial fibrillation (AF), a very common atrial arrhythmia which is associated to significant morbidities, such as increased risk of mortality, heart failure, and thromboembolic events. Catheter ablation of AF is a therapeutic technique which uses radiofrequency energy to destroy atrial tissue involved in the arrhythmia sustenance, typically aiming at the electrical disconnection of the of the pulmonary veins triggers. However, recurrence rate is still very high, showing that the very complex and heterogeneous nature of AF still represents a challenging problem. Leveraging the tools of non-stationary and statistical signal processing, the first part of our work has a twofold focus: firstly, we compare the performance of two different ablation technologies, based on contact force sensing or remote magnetic controlled, using signal-based criteria as surrogates for lesion assessment. Furthermore, we investigate the role of ablation parameters in lesion formation using the late-gadolinium enhanced magnetic resonance imaging. Secondly, we hypothesized that in human atria the frequency content of the bipolar signal is directly related to the local conduction velocity (CV), a key parameter characterizing the substrate abnormality and influencing atrial arrhythmias. Comparing the degree of spectral compression among signals recorded at different points of the endocardial surface in response to decreasing pacing rate, our experimental data demonstrate a significant correlation between CV and the corresponding spectral centroids. However, complex spatio-temporal propagation pattern characterizing AF spurred the need for new signals acquisition and processing methods. Multi-electrode catheters allow whole-chamber panoramic mapping of electrical activity but produce an amount of data which need to be preprocessed and analyzed to provide clinically relevant support to the physician. Graph signal processing has shown its potential on a variety of applications involving high-dimensional data on irregular domains and complex network. Nevertheless, though state-of-the-art graph-based methods have been successful for many tasks, so far they predominantly ignore the time-dimension of data. To address this shortcoming, in the second part of this dissertation, we put forth a Time-Vertex Signal Processing Framework, as a particular case of the multi-dimensional graph signal processing. Linking together the time-domain signal processing techniques with the tools of GSP, the Time-Vertex Signal Processing facilitates the analysis of graph structured data which also evolve in time. We motivate our framework leveraging the notion of partial differential equations on graphs. We introduce joint operators, such as time-vertex localization and we present a novel approach to significantly improve the accuracy of fast joint filtering. We also illustrate how to build time-vertex dictionaries, providing conditions for efficient invertibility and examples of constructions. The experimental results on a variety of datasets suggest that the proposed tools can bring significant benefits in various signal processing and learning tasks involving time-series on graphs. We close the gap between the two parts illustrating the application of graph and time-vertex signal processing to the challenging case of multi-channels intracardiac signals

Cardiac Arrhythmias

The most intimate mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias are still quite unknown to scientists. Genetic studies on ionic alterations, the electrocardiographic features of cardiac rhythm and an arsenal of diagnostic tests have done more in the last five years than in all the history of cardiology. Similarly, therapy to prevent or cure such diseases is growing rapidly day by day. In this book the reader will be able to see with brighter light some of these intimate mechanisms of production, as well as cutting-edge therapies to date. Genetic studies, electrophysiological and electrocardiographyc features, ion channel alterations, heart diseases still unknown , and even the relationship between the psychic sphere and the heart have been exposed in this book. It deserves to be read

Caractéristiques et traitements des cicatrices myocardiques responsables d'arythmie ventriculaire

Radiofrequency (RF) catheter ablation is a recognized treatment for ventricular tachycardia(VT) in patients with structural heart disease. Even if it can be life saving, success rateremains around 53 to 67%.We aimed to better characterized VT substrate in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy(CMP), non ischemic CMP with subepicardial scar, left ventricular assist device and Brugadasyndrome. We also evaluate the efficacy of new technologies (such as contact force), specificapproaches (epicardial access, intra coronary alcohol ablation), systematic use of cardiacimaging and new end-points for VT ablation.We demonstrated that each substrate had specific electrophysiological properties that helpoptimizing the mapping and the ablation in these patients. We also showed the interest of(1) new technologies to improve RF lesion formation; (2) specific approaches in selectedpatients to eradicate the VT substrate; and (3) cardiac imaging to help identifying thesubstrate and preventing complications. Finally using local abnormal ventricular potentialelimination as an end-point for VT ablation is feasible and associated with lower mortalityduring follow-up when achieved.Knowledge of substrate specificities, use of contact force, cardiac imaging, epicardial accessin selected patients and scar homogenization improve VT ablation efficacy and/or safety.L’ablation par radiofréquence percutanée est un des traitements des tachycardiesventriculaires (TV). Bien que salvateur chez certains patients avec myocardiopathie (MCP),les taux de succès rapportés varient de 53 à 67% dans les centres entrainés.Le but de ce travail est d’essayer de mieux comprendre le substrat des arythmiesventriculaires et d’en améliorer le traitement. Pour cela, nous avons étudié le substrat despatients adressés pour ablation de TV (sur MCP ischémique, sur MCP dilatée à coronairessaines avec cicatrices sous épicardiques, chez les patients avec assistance ventriculairegauche et chez un patient avec syndrome de Brugada). Nous avons également évalué etproposé des outils/attitudes thérapeutiques pour essayer d’améliorer le traitement des TV.Nous avons mis en évidence des particularités électrophysiologiques pour chacun de cessubstrats qui permettent d’optimiser et d’adapter la cartographie et l’ablation chez cespatients. Par ailleurs, nous avons montré l’intérêt : (1) de nouvelles technologies pouraméliorer l’efficacité de l’ablation ; (2) des approches épicardiques ou d’alcoolisation intracoronaire, chez certains patients sélectionnés, qui permettent d’éliminer le substrat et (3)de l’imagerie cardiaque pour mieux identifier le substrat et diminuer les risques perprocédure.La connaissance du substrat spécifique à chaque pathologie, une information sur laforce du contact entre le cathéter et le tissu, l’imagerie cardiaque (scanner et IRM), uneapproche épicardique chez certains patients et l’homogénéisation de la cicatricemyocardique permettent d’être plus efficace lors de l’ablation des TV