Abstract:

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia with overall prevalence of almost 1%. Treatment options range from pharmacological to surgical options. While ablation strategies are the most common thera- pies, it has been testified that overdrive stimulation can prevent AF successfully. The presented work suggests an approach to simulate the excitation propagation with various overdrive pacing frequencies based on a detailed cell model in a simplified anatomical structure. Through simulations, a relationship between the overdrive pac- ing position and its frequency with respect to the onset of AF was shown. The method applied in this work can be used to further develop optimization strategies for overdrive pacing. In the long run, the application trans- ferred to individual patient data might be used to increase the success rate of overdrive pacing in terminating atrial fibrillation.