Diagnosing non-periodic arrhythmias at the point of care in a single heartbeat

Thanks to a new study from Columbia Engineering School, USA it may now be possible to diagnose non-periodic arrhythmias noninvasively and at low cost within a single heartbeat.

Non-periodic arrhythmias include atrial and ventricular fibrillation, which are associated with severely abnormal heart rhythm that can in some cases be life-threatening. Using Electromechanical Wave Imaging (EWI), the researchers sent unfocused ultrasound waves through the closed chest and into the heart. They were able to capture fast-frame-rate images that enabled them, for the first time, to map transient events such as the electromechanical activation that occurs over a few tens of milliseconds while also imaging the entire heart within a single beat. This means that physicians won