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High Resolution Multi-Parametric Diagnostics And Therapy Of Atrial Fibrillation: Chasing Arrhythmia Vulnerabilities In The Spatial Domain, Sarah Gutbrod

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

After a century of research, atrial fibrillation (AF) remains a challenging disease to study and exceptionally resilient to treatment. Unfortunately, AF is becoming a massive burden on the health care system with an increasing population of susceptible elderly patients and expensive unreliable treatment options. Pharmacological therapies continue to be disappointingly ineffective or are hampered by side effects due to the ubiquitous nature of ion channel targets throughout the body. Ablative therapy for atrial tachyarrhythmias is growing in acceptance. However, ablation procedures can be complex, leading to varying levels of recurrence, and have a number of serious risks. The high recurrence …