Cardiac mapping is a method of catheter electrodes navigation,  cardiac chamber reconstruction and electric activity visualization.

Cardiac mapping refers to the process of identifying the temporal and spatial distributions of myocardial electrical potentials during a particular heart rhythm. Mapping aims at elucidation of the mechanism or mechanisms of the cardiac rhythm, description of the propagation of activation from its initiation to its completion within a region of interest, and identification of the site of origin or a critical site of conduction to serve as a target for catheter ablation.

Electroanatomic cardiac mapping systems have been introduced into clinical electrophysiology over a decade ago. In principle, such a system consists of three different parts: (i) non-fluoroscopic catheter localization, (ii) calculation and three-dimensional (3D) display of electrical activation sequences (‘activation maps’) and voltage information (‘voltage maps’) within the cardiac anatomy, and (iii) 3D display of the anatomy of a heart chamber from serially generated catheter localization information.

The technological imperative is changing the field of electrophysiology. The rapid emergence of electroanatomic mapping with multielectrode catheters was spawned out of both intellectual necessity and clinical necessity. We are already on the road to higher resolution with multielectrode catheters becoming the new mainstay for mapping of complex arrhythmias.

Cardiac Mapping