{Reference Type}: Journal Article
{Title}: Long-term continuous monitoring of arrhythmias in pigs with insertable cardiac monitors.
{Author}: Airaksinen J;Siimes S;Hartikainen J;Ylä-Herttuala S;
{Journal}: Pflugers Arch
{Volume}: 476
{Issue}: 7
{Year}: 2024 Jul 4
{Factor}: 4.458
{DOI}: 10.1007/s00424-024-02962-9
{Abstract}: Arrhythmia detection is essential when assessing the safety of novel drugs and therapies in preclinical studies. Many short-term arrhythmia monitoring methods exist, including non-invasive ECG and Holter. However, there are no reliable, long-term, non-invasive, or minimally invasive methods for cardiac arrhythmia follow-up in large animals that allows free movement with littermates. A long follow-up time is needed when estimating the impact of long-lasting drugs or therapies, such as gene therapy. We evaluated the feasibility and performance of insertable cardiac monitors (ICMs) in pigs for minimally invasive, long-term monitoring of cardiac arrhythmias that allows free movement and species-specific behavior. Multiple implantation sites were tested to assess signal quality. ICMs recognized reliably many different arrhythmias but failed to detect single extrasystoles. They also over-diagnosed T-waves, resulting in oversensing. Muscle activity and natural startles of the animals caused noise, leading to a heterogeneous signal requiring post-recording evaluation. In spite of these shortcomings, the ICMs showed to be very useful for minimally invasive long-term monitoring of cardiac rhythm in pigs.