Automatic Detection of Conducted Premature Atrial Contractions to Predict Atrial Fibrillation in Patients after Cardiac Surgery

A method was developed to automatically detect conducted Premature Atrial Contractions (PACs) from the ECG signal. The method consisted of idenrifying the R waves of the ECG signal, determining the irregular beats that correspond to premature beats and dissociating atrial and ventricular premature beats. The method was developed using the ECG signals from Physionet and Cardio- Vascular Intensive Care Units (CVICUs) at the Cleveland Clinic. The developed method was applied on ECG signals collected from 24 ~ post-cardiovascular surgery patients that developed AFIB. Out of the 24 patients, 21 patients had significant number of PACs before AFIB. Additionally, in these patients either a paltern of sustained cyclical PAC activity or bursts of iniermittenf PAC activity were observed.