Myocardial Ischemia as a Genuine Cause Responsible for the Organization and "Fertilization" of Conflictogenic Atrial Fibrillation:New Conceptual Insights Into Arrhythmogenicity

Journal of Atrial Fibrillation
Petras Stirbys

Abstract

Atrial fibrillation continues to be a challenging arrhythmia. There are some conventional, time-tested explanations of atrial fibrillation genesis, however some uncertainty of its complete understanding still exists. We focused on atrial ischemia which, hypothetically, could be responsible for manifestation of the arrhythmia, irrespective of the underlying heart disease. Evidences abounds that atrial fibrillation has an extremely strong association with nutritional/oxidative status of myocardium. This arrhythmia seemingly may stem from the electrophysiological differences taking place in the boundary areas. To validate such assumptions we have surveyed widely accepted theories based on clinical and experimental evidence. There was an attempt to integrate some well-known theoretical explanations (focal, multifocal, ectopic, reentrant activity, atrial remodeling, etc.) into a new conceptually systematized arrhythmogenesis. Confronting ischemic and non-ischemic atrial zones electrophysiologically on their borderlines presumably creates a substrate vulnerable to the development of atrial fibrillation. The behavior of these interrelated areas is likely ischemia-dependent; the separating borderline(s) may be treated as conflictogenic...Continue Reading

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