What is the recommended duration for an Atrial High Rate Episode (AHRE) for reliable diagnostics accuracy?
AHREs, currently defined as episodes of at least 5 minutes of atrial tachyarrhythmias/AF with an atrial rate >180 beats/min, are usually asymptomatic and discovered during routine device follow-up. Although temporal cutoffs for detection and storage of AHRE data as short as 30 to 60 seconds have been used, the diagnostic accuracy is reliable when episodes of 5 minutes in duration are considered, since, using this cutoff, the appropriateness in AF detection is 95%, minimizing the risk of over-sensing due to detection of artifacts caused by myopotentials or other sources of electrical noise.