PM false diagnoisis of runs of atrial fibrillation caused by far field sensing

My lastest PM interogation printout reported 8 episose of "AT/AF". The Medtronic tech who did the testing said that the episodes were not afib at all but rather "far field sensing" which he was able to determine from inspection of the atrial channel printout. The atrial channel was said to be detecting  impulses from the ventricle and counting them  as if they were atrial signals from the SA node so that there was double counting of the atrial rate and with my unit the AT/AF detection setting is 171. He and the EP doc agreed the fix was to make the atrail channel less sensitive.

Anyone out there have any similar experience ?Does anyone know what the consequences of this would be in terms of heart function, all the events (Atrial high rate events) happened when I was jogging and lasted from as little as 10 seconds up to 60 seconds.

2 Comments

AT/AF Events

by DAVID H - 2017-01-23 12:44:21

Interesting................My last PM interrogation (A Medtronic VIVA XT CRT-D) showed numerous "AT/AF" events.  Some lasted 2 - 4 hours with numbers like: "Avg BMP A/V: 159/83". Vast majority lasted less than a minute.  Most happened in the middle of the night while asleep.  I'll generally do 4 - 6 miles daily (treadmill & walking track) & have never noticed any ill effects.  I'll "bug" my device clinic nurse with this info.  Thanks!!

at/af events

by fox30 - 2017-07-17 09:53:38

As best I can tell, there are 2 conditions  (there may well be more) that can be counted as at/af .They are Far field sensing which I had had and RNRVAS which stands for repetitive non reentrant ventricular atrial synergy.Both can be diagnoses by looking at the atrial electrogram and the event markers. The issue of what to do when the PM detects real AF is complicated and the  story still in the progress of being told.The main issue is whether those AF runs should be treated with oral anticoagulants .Currently there is at least one randomized clinical trial underway to attempt to answer that question .This is the ARTESIA trial and will enroll patients with episodes of AF between 6 minutes and 24 hours.It will be at lest 2 years before any any results.

By the way what did your EP nurse have to say about your epidsodes?

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