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2025 AF Symposium
AI Meets A-Fib—vMap to Locate Non-PV Triggers
Anish Amin MD
In the Spotlight Session, New and Emerging Technologies in Arrhythmia Management, Dr. Anish Amin of the OhioHealth Heart & Vascular Group, Columbus, Ohio gave a presentation on “The Importance of Trigger Mapping in AF”. He featured the vMap system from Vektor Medical.
The vMap system is a non-invasive AI-enabled arrhythmia analysis tool using just a patient’s 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG), 
the most commonly available test in medicine. vMap analyses the ECG reading against a library of “hundreds of thousands” of arrhythmia simulations to determine its findings.
AI=Artificial Intelligence; In medical imaging, AI tools analyze CT scans, x-rays, MRIs and other images for findings that a human radiologist might miss.
For A-Fib patients, this empowers electrophysiologists (EPs) to locate the source(s) of the A-Fib signals especially non-PV triggers.
This is all done without entering the patient’s heart, and without using a mapping catheter in the EP lab. And is typically done beforehand, in fact, before the day of the patient’s catheter ablation.
Clinical trials have shown the use of vMap improves patient outcomes and reduces procedure time.
The Vektor Medical vMap system converts standard 12-lead ECGs into detailed electro anatomical maps for use in catheter ablation procedures.
How vMap Works
A 12-lead ECG is put through a non-invasive registration process (1-2 minutes) to annotate where the original signal is most likely to be occurring.
An advanced proprietary algorithm generates beat-by-beat 2D and 3D cardiac maps. Focal arrhythmias like PACs and PVCs can be inferred and patterned into a historical library.
More complicated, chaotic waveforms like Atrial Fibrillation require larger swatches of data but can still be incorporated into the vMap simulation library. vMap has a 98% success rate in revealing the arrhythmia’s origin location with a high degree of spatial resolution.
vMap Results
vMap technology image
vMap analyzes a patient’s ECG and, using AI, compares it to an extensive library of other ECGs. This shows doctors, for example, where non-PV triggers are located.
In a study presented at the 2024 AF Symposium, after PVI procedures on a small control group, a vMap analysis was conducted. vMap revealed additional arrhythmia signal locations (1.6).
I Contacted Vektor Medical for a Patient Case Using the vMap
Following the 2025 AF Symposium, I contacted Vektor Medical who sent me a case history of a 64-year-old male with a 9 year+ history of symptomatic A-Fib—a difficult case.
He had had a MAZE surgery (2012) complicated by left phrenic nerve paralysis, then had repeat catheter ablation procedures (2015 and 2018). In late 2021 he again experienced A-Fib symptoms which negatively impacted his quality of life (low blood pressure, sweating, shaking, etc.)
He had read about vMap and in 2022 contacted the University of California San Diego–Health (UCSD) for a repeat ablation.
During his ablation at UCSD, his lesions from previous ablations were found to be intact. Conventional electroanatomic mapping didn’t reveal additional A-Fib drivers.
But in less than 3 minutes, vMap did identify a previously unknown target lesion site in the posterior left atrium. Ablation at the posterior wall terminated his ongoing A-Fib to sinus rhythm.
He has had no recurrence since and has experienced improved quality of life.
Editor’s Comments
Editor’s CommentsToday it’s somewhat routine and relatively easy to do a standard Pulmonary Vein Isolation procedure. Over 1 million were done last year.
Mapping and Ablating Non-PV Triggers Key to Success: The next frontier for patients in the treatment of A-Fib is the mapping and ablating of non-PV triggers. But ablating non-PV triggers is one of the most difficult challenges Electrophysiologists (EPs) face.
vMap Identifies Non-PV Triggers: As patients we are most grateful for vMap’s ability to locate and ablate non-PV triggers.
In the AF Symposium 2024 study above, after a PVI, vMap identified 1-2 additional arrhythmia sites (most likely non-PV triggers) that were then ablated.
That’s a huge improvement! If the doctors had stopped after a standard PVI, many patients would still be in A-Fib.
What A-Fib Patients Need to Know: This is an important new addition to the EP’s “tool box”. I intend to research what EPs and Medical Centers are using the vMap system and post a list on A-Fib.com (I’ll announce it on my A-Fib.com blog.)
