Intraoperative electrophysiologic mapping during cardiac surgery.

Intraoperative mapping is a method to document the surgical anatomy of cardiac tissues with electrophysiologic importance cartographically at time of surgery. The presented communication gives a survey of the present status of the technique of electrophysiologic mapping and its essential clinical applications. Special attention in this regard is directed to the intraoperative identification of the specialized AV conduction system in congenital cardiac malformations with unpredictable location of His bundle, to the detection of accessory AV bundles in patients with the Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome and to the intraoperative morphological study of ventricular reentry tachycardias. Suitable technical equipment for "clinical" intraoperative electrophysiologic mapping is described in detail.