Cardiac anatomy: what the electrophysiologist needs to know

The rapid development of interventional procedures for the treatment of arrhythmias in humans, especially the use of catheter ablation techniques, has renewed interest in cardiac anatomy. Effective and safer catheter based procedures have come from an improved understanding of not only the gross anatomic details of the heart, but also some architectural and histological features of various cardiac regions and their neighbouring landmarks. This article aims to provide the basic anatomic information needed to understand mapping and ablative procedures for the cardiac interventional electrophysiologist.