Analysis of epicardial mapping electrogram of sustained atrial fibrillation based on Shannon entropy.

The mechanisms of sustained atrial fibrillation (AF) are not well understood. And predicting the development of AF is a problem of great clinical interest. This paper proposed an AF analysis method by evaluating, based on Shannon entropy, the complexity of atrial activation in various AF stages. The first step was to preprocess and characterize electrograms. Then, Shannon entropy analysis and statistical analysis were applied to find the significance of interval entropy in sustained AF. Study results proved that interval entropy presented a degressive tendency in the process of sustained AF and some sites with high activation frequency but low entropy was possibly related to ectopic driver of AF.