The fluoroscopic cine-loop integrated in the personal computer electrophysiologic measurement system

The importance of correct positioning of the catheter during mapping and radio frequency (RF) ablation is evident. Coupling between the fluoroscopic image and the electrogram is necessary to document that position. The authors developed a method for the acquisition of the fluoroscopic image and the integration of this data into the electrophysiologic (EP) system. For this purpose the EP system, the personal computer electrophysiologic measurement system (PC-EMS) is extended with a videoframe grabber. To document the dynamics of the catheter position during the cardiac cycle the authors implemented the cine-loop presentation; 8 sequential captured frames are displayed in an infinite loop. The acquisition of the cine-loop images proceeds concurrently with the acquisition of a 2 seconds period of surface ECG and intracardiac traces. The traces are marked at the actual moment of the frame captures to relate the individual frames with the exact moment in the cardiac cycle. The combined data is archived on CD.<>