Time series analysis of the surface electrocardiogram in patients with atrial fibrillation

Atrial Fibrillation is one of the most common arrhythmias. Most statistical analyses had been performed on intra atrial electrocardiograms while, diagnosis of this disorder is made more commonly by use of surface electrocardiogram. The aim of this study was to investigate the abnormality of the electrical system of the heart by using the 12-lead ECG. The 12-lead ECGs of 5 patients with atrial fibrillation and that of a healthy subject were studied for 2.5 minutes and compared with each other. our study showed that in both normal and abnormal hearts, (V1, V2, V3), (V4, V5, V6), (I, II, III) and (aVR, aVF, aVL) were correlated. The correlation between I, II, III leads had no relation to AF whereas correlation between aVR, aVF and aVL decreased in the patients. This study showed that we can consider both focus and reentrant theories acceptable for explanation of electrical behavior of heart in AF patients.