. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Aug 19.

Published in final edited form as: Circ Arrhythm Electrophysiol. 2013 Feb 7;6(1):58–67. doi: 10.1161/CIRCEP.111.977264

Table 2.

Spatial Dynamics of Atrial Fibrillation Sources

Characteristic	Persistent AF	Paroxysmal AF	P
Baseline AF cycle length, ms	170±21	189±13	0.03
Patients with detected sources	28/29 (97%)	7/7 (100%)
Patients in whom FIRM was completed	26/29 (89.7%)	6/7 (85.7%)
Patients reaching acute end point	24/29 (82.8%)	7/7 (100%)
No. of concurrent AF sources	2.4±1.1	1.9±0.7	0.23
No. of rotors, %^* (LA/RA)	74.1% (29/14)	61.5% (6/2)
No. of focal impulses, %^* (LA/RA)	25.9% (15/0)	38.5% (5/0)
Primary source
No. of rotors (LA, RA)	18 (14/4)	4 (3/1)
No. of focal impulses (LA, RA)	6 (6/0)	3 (3/0)
Precession area, cm²	2.5±1.7	1.7±0.5	0.3
FIRM-ablation time to AF termination	2.5 (IQR, 1–3)	3.0 (IQR, 1–4.1)	0.49
Primary source/min^¶	(4.5±7.3)	(3.9±4.1)
Total FIRM-ablation time	19.9 (IQR, 3.1–27.5)	8.9 (IQR, 3–10.5)	0.01
All sources/min^‡	17.5±10.5	7.7±4.2

AF indicates atrial fibrillation; FIRM, focal impulse and rotor modulation; LA, left atrial; and RA, right atrial.

Percentages are within each patient group;

^¶

duration of FIRM ablation at the rotor/focal source where AF terminated then was nonreinducible; and

^‡

total duration of FIRM ablation for all sources (before conventional ablation).