Introduction: Why Do We Need Arrhythmia Induction?

Abstract

One of the main challenges in evaluating a patient with palpitations is determining the type of arrhythmia that is responsible for the patient’s symptoms. Many of the available outpatient monitors have limitations in the number of channels they can record or the amount of data they can store for analysis. In many instances, the initiation and termination of the arrhythmia are not captured on these monitors, and essential information for a correct diagnosis is not available. Ideally, the arrhythmia should be recorded on a 12-lead electrocardiogram for a correct diagnosis, but most of the time, this is possible only when the arrhythmia is sustained long enough to be still present when the patient arrives at the hospital. In the best case scenario, the arrhythmia is recorded on a heart monitor or 12-lead ekg, and then a pre-ablation strategy can be developed. Depending on the protocol used to induce arrhythmia, the clinical arrhythmia might be inducible along with other arrhythmias which might not be clinical. Knowing the type of arrhythmia the patient has as outpatient helps guide the ablation of the inducible arrhythmia that has similar characteristics, rather than map and ablate all inducible arrhythmias in the EP lab.