Non-invasive electrophysiological cardiac mapping from development to practice

In modern interventional arrhythmology, invasive endocardial mapping systems can eliminate arrhythmias with a high degree of efficiency. However, invasive mapping systems have several disadvantages, such as: the invasiveness of the method, which requires some preparation and has a number of limitations; the impossibility of simultaneous determination of electrophysiological processes occurring throughout the heart; the complexity of mapping when the arrhythmia focus is located in hard-to-reach anatomical structures; localization of the focus on the epicardial surface of the heart and occasional and difficult-to-induce arrhythmias during surgery. In clinical practice, it became necessary to develop and implement systems for superficial non-invasive electrophysiological mapping of the heart. The main difference between superficial non-invasive electrophysiological mapping of the heart and other techniques is that after processing all the information, it is possible to receive a holistic picture of electrophysiological processes occurring throughout the heart in real time instead of receiving separately recorded signals and information from several chambers of the heart. In this article, we describe the history of the development and implementation of superficial non-invasive electrophysiological cardiac mapping and the potential use of the diagnostic method in treating the various types of arrhythmias. A brief technique of carrying out this diagnostic method is described. Further directions regarding the development and improvement of this research method are also discussed, such as developing and improving the system for visualizing heart processes occurring in real time, improving the treatment of patients with cardiac arrhythmias, introducing non-invasive mapping of heart data into the systems used for invasive electroanatomical mapping of the heart and integrating the method with systems for noninvasive ablation. The non-invasive mapping system of the heart is a modern progressive and constantly evolving diagnostic method that enables visualizing the electrophysiological processes occurring in the human heart with high accuracy in a non-invasive manner. To determine tactics of treatment, decide on an interventional approach and select the optimal technology at the preoperative stage for treating patients with various rhythm disturbances in their hearts.