Arrhythmia

Arrhythmias

Arrhythmias occur spontaneously in normal, healthy animals at a low incidence. Many arrhythmias are not harmful and have no clinical significance; however, some may have more serious effects and lead to cardiac arrest or sudden death. Changes in the incidence rate or type of arrhythmia may indicate disease progression or treatment effect.

The tables below shows the most prevalent arrhythmias in the beagle dog and the cynomolgus monkey. Both the dog and the cynomolgus monkey can have prevalent occurrences of sinus rhythms to include bradycardia, tachycardia, sinus arrhythmia and premature ventricular complexes.

Incidence/prevalence of spontaneous arrhythmia: beagle dog¹

Arrhythmia	Incidence Found	Incidence Rate
Sinus rhythms (i.e. sinus rhythm, sinus arrhythmia, wandering sinus pacemaker, sinus arrest/block, sinus bradycardia, sinus tachycardia)	2450	100%
Ventricular premature complexes	4	0.16%
Second degree AV block	14	0.57%
Bundle branch block (right)	1	0.04%
Ventricular pre-excitation and Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome	3	0.12%

Incidence/prevalence of spontaneous arrhythmia: cynomolgus monkey¹

Arrhythmia	Incidence Found	Incidence Rate
Sinus rhythms (i.e. sinus rhythm, sinus arrhythmia, wandering sinus pacemaker, sinus arrest/block, sinus bradycardia, sinus tachycardia)	1563	100%
Atrial premature complexes	2	0.12%
Ventricular premature complexes	6	0.38%
Ventricular tachycardia	1	0.06%
Ventricular bigeminy	1	0.06%
Bundle branch block (right)	11	0.7%
Ventricular escape rhythms	1	0.06%

1070
Arrhythmia articles citing DSI in Google Scholar

Arrhythmias are identified by looking at an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal and assessing the rate and regularity of the heartbeat. Typically, ECG is measured by placing two electrodes directly on the skin and reading the potential difference between them. The detected waveform features depend on the amount of cardiac tissue involved in the contraction, and well as the orientation of the electrode placement with respect to the heart. A number of different ECG lead configurations exist based on electrode location and configuration.

The most common arrhythmia types¹

Classification of Cardiac Arrhythmias
Normal sinus impulse formation	Normal sinus rhythm Sinus arrhythmia Wandering sinus pacemaker
Disturbances of sinus impulse formation	Sinus arrest/block Sinus bradycardia Sinus tachycardia
Disturbances of supraventricular impulse formation	Atrial premature complexes Atrial tachycardia Atrial flutter Atrial fibrillation Atrioventricular junctional rhythm Ventricular premature complexes
Disturbances of ventricular impulse formation	Ventricular tachycardia Ventricular asystole Ventricular fibrillation Sinoatrial block
Disturbances of impulse conduction	Persistent atrial standstill Atrial standstill Ventricular pre-excitation First degree AV block Second degree AV block Complete AV block Bundle branch block Sick-sinus syndrome
Disturbances of both the impulse formation and impulse conduction	Ventricular pre-excitation and Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome Atrial premature complexes with aberrant ventricular conduction
Ventricular escape rhythms	Junctional escape rhythms Ventricular escape rhythms

Arrhythmia Detection
Traditional arrhythmia detection is accomplished by examining ECG waveforms to assess heart rate and rhythm. Anomalies are found by manually counting the number of normal complexes (p waves for atrial rate, QRS for ventricular) in a given time period, looking for variations in waveform morphology, and marking missing waveforms. Previously developed software made only marginal improvements in the process.

Data Analysis Software

Data Insights™ offers an automated analysis method to accurately and consistently find, classify, and report on the arrhythmias within the ECG signal. The following table outlines the arrhythmia types, classifications, and quantification parameters available with Data Insights.

Types of Arrhythmias	Classifications	Reporting Parameters
Ventricular beats	Runs of complexes	Durations
Atrial beats	Couplets	Occurrences
Junctional beats	Triplets	Cycles per occurrence
Atrioventricular (AV) block	Bigeminy	Distribution
Sinus pause	Trigeminy
	Premature beats

DSI’s arrhythmia solutions offer flexibility, reliable performance, and quality to satisfy your research needs.

DSI offers a variety of solutions for monitoring, analyzing and reporting arrhythmias in freely moving or restrained animal models. I mplantable telemetry, external telemetry, and hardwired methods are available for small to large animal models, offering you the ability to collect one or many physiologic signals. Each of DSI’s solutions for ECG research includes the necessary sensors, hardware, software, and accessories.

Data Acquisition and Analysis Software

DSI offers Ponemah™ software to help you facilitate acquisition of your ECG data. ECG PRO, a Ponemah analysis module, uses template-based analysis to select template cardiac cycles for precise comparison to other cycles in a dataset. Data Insights™, an add-on to Ponemah v5.20, was designed to automatically find, classify and report arrhythmias.

Scientific Services

DSI offers Technical Training Services to minimize the time it takes to set up and become proficient with our sophisticated ECG monitoring and analysis tools. DSI also offers Data Services—our team of experts can simplify your arrhythmia research by analyzing your data and accurately reporting the results.

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DSI's bibliography search tool may help you find publications known to use DSI technology. It is searchable by keyword, title and author and references of interest can be easily exported. The following publications have been included as references to demonstrate how arrhythmias can be assessed and data applied to specific research applications.

References

Large Animal

¹Gauvin, D.V., Tilley, L. P., Smith, F. W. K. Jr., Theodore J. Baird. (2009). Spontaneous cardiac arrhythmias recorded in three experimentally- and drug-naive laboratory species (canine, primate, swine) during standard pre-study screening. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods. 59(2) 57-61. doi: 10.1016/j.vascn.2008.12.001

Chui, R. W., Derakhchan, K. & Vargas, H. M. (2012). Comprehensive analysis of cardiac arrhythmias in telemetered cynomolgus monkeys over a 6 month period. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods. 66(2):84-91. doi: 10.1016/j.vascn.2012.05.002

Cools, F., & Gallacher, D. (2009). Normal prevalence of cardiac arrhythmias in 24 h ECG recordings of chronically telemetered, healthy, freely moving beagle dogs. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods, 60(2), 235–236. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.vascn.2009.04.112

Tilley, L. P., Smith, F. W. K., Oyama, M. A., & Sleeper, M. M. (2008). Manual of Canine and Feline Cardiology (Fourth Edition). Elsevier.

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