Do patients with paroxysmal and persistent atrial fibrillation without structural heart disease exhibit electroanatomic remodeling compared to controls?
Atrial fibrillation is associated with progressive electroanatomic substrate abnormalities even in the absence of structural heart disease.
Patients with AF have lower regional voltage, increased proportion of low voltage, slowed conduction, and increased proportion of complex signals compared to controls. Many of these changes are more pronounced in persistent AF patients, suggesting there may be a progressive nature to the changes. Differences occurred in the absence of structural heart disease. These substrate abnormalities provide further insight into the progressive nature of atrial remodeling and the mechanisms involved in maintenance of AF.
Teh et al. (2011) studied this question.