Contactless Magnetocardiography and Related Novel Methods for Non-Invasive Experimental and Clinical Functional Imaging of Normal and Abnormal Cardiac Electrophysiology

Dear Colleagues,

Cardiac arrhythmias are a major burden on global health and patient quality of life. Despite advances in the areas of ablation and pharmacological therapies, both these approaches remain limited, emphasizing the need for accurate, personalized assessment of arrhythmogenic mechanisms to enhance efficacy, minimize risk, and prevent proarrhythmic drug effects. This need is particularly pressing for prevalent sustained arrhythmia such as atrial fibrillation, an issue which affects millions worldwide and remains only partially treatable by interventional means.

To minimize unnecessary procedural risks and enable timely reevaluations for reproducibility, non-invasive techniques, such as multimodal integration of electrocardiography (ECG) and magnetocardiography (MCG), with anatomical and functional imaging provided by echocardiography, cardiac CT or MRI, should ideally be used to assess human cardiac electrophysiology. In particular, magnetocardiography (MCG) offers a promising, contactless approach for clinical electrophysiological studies. Based on well-established physical principles, MCG records biomagnetic fields that provide information complementary to that of electrocardiography (ECG). The direct relationship between cardiac magnetic fields and intracellular currents, the minimal distortion caused by the conductivity of surrounding tissues, and the capability to reconstruct action potential waveforms all support its additional diagnostic potential.

Furthermore, MCG enables a simpler and more accurate inverse solution for three-dimensional localization of arrhythmogenic substrates compared to ECG mapping, validated over two decades of research. Ongoing advances in development are making MCG more reliable in paving the way for standardized, widely accessible clinical applications.

The aim of the Special Issue “Contactless Magnetocardiography and Related Novel Methods for Non-Invasive Experimental and Clinical Functional Imaging of Normal and Abnormal Cardiac Electrophysiology” is to encourage colleagues involved in clinical research to submit original manuscripts.

Sub-themes for this research topic include, but are not limited to the following:

• Three-dimensional MCG imaging for diagnostic purposes (cardiomyopathies, arrhythmias, etc.).
• Magnetoionography to quantify the effect of antiarrhythmic drugs.
• Standardization of MCG procedures for clinical applications and integration within hospital or ambulatory services.
• Other related novel methods for non-invasive experimental and clinical functional imaging of normal and abnormal cardiac electrophysiology.

Dr. Riccardo Fenici
Dr. Donatella Brisinda
Dr. Peter Fenici
Guest Editors

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