An interactive computerized system for recognition of sinus rhythm and pacing responses in development of tachycardia detection algorithms for ICDs

Currently available implantable cardioverter/defibrillators (ICDs) cannot effectively differentiate between supraventricular tachycardia and ventricular tachyarrhythmia. This limitation can cause inappropriate delivery of electrical shocks to patients implanted with these devices. One very promising approach for overcoming this problem relies on atrioventricular interval analysis with intracardiac leads for sensing both atrial and ventricular electrical activity. The assessment of such an approach, as performed in patients undergoing intracardiac electrophysiology study in the authors´ clinic laboratory, results in vast amounts of digitized data. Thus, an interactive computerized system was designed for editing, managing and processing these data. During the test procedure, four channels of cardiac activity (two intracardiac and two ECG leads) were digitized in real time and stored onto hard disk. Software called FAST-Edit (Find-Adjust-Snip-and-Tag) was designed to perform data processing using machine recognition and operator inspection. FAST-Edit has proven to be a very useful cost effective tool in the authors´ development of new tachycardia detection algorithms for future generation ICDs. Further, its simplicity allows for ready modification to fit other requirements and applications