Atrial fibrillation organization: quantification of propofol effects.

The effect of conventional i.v. anaesthetic agents on atrial fibrillation (AF) dynamics has not been fully addressed. We aim to evaluate whether the most frequently used intravenous anaesthetic agent, propofol, modifies AF organization parameters. Multiple and simultaneous intraatrial bipolar recordings from 27 patients in AF were analyzed before and after infusing a propofol bolus. Signal organization parameters were determined using time and frequency domain analysis. Non-linear analysis was also performed to determine signal entropy. Linear analysis showed that AF becomes more organized in right atrial recordings after infusing propofol, increasing interelectrode correlation (difference of 0.017 +/- 0.005), with the contrary effect on the left atrial dipoles (difference of -0.015 +/- 0.009, p = 0.008). Entropy analysis showed similar findings, achieving a statistical significance of p = 0.001 with Shannon Entropy.