Clinical implications of serum adiponectin on progression of atrial fibrillation

Background The association between circulating adiponectin levels and atrial fibrillation (AF) is uncertain. We, therefore, investigated whether an increased serum adiponectin level is implicated in the long-term recurrence of AF after ablation therapy. Methods Our study included 100 consecutive patients (88 men; median age, 57.9±10.9 years) who underwent catheter ablation for AF at our hospital between 2011 and 2013. The adiponectin and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) levels were measured before ablation and compared between those in whom AF recurred and those in whom AF did not recur. Results Elevation in adiponectin levels was significantly associated with female sex, non-paroxysmal AF, heart failure, higher NT-proBNP and matrix metallo-proteinase-2 levels, and lower body mass index. After a stepwise adjustment for any potential confounding variables, the adiponectin levels remained significantly associated with female sex (beta=0.2601, P=0.0041), non-paroxysmal AF (beta=0.2708, P=0.0080), and higher NT-proBNP levels (beta=0.2536, P= 0.0138). During the median follow-up period of 26.2 months, AF recurred in 48 of the 100 patients. Stepwise multivariate adjustment showed that an increased log-transformed NT-proBNP (Hazard ratio [HR], 2.18; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.25-4.00; P=0.0055), longer duration of AF (HR, 1.87; 95%CI 1.01-3.76; P=0.0465), and decreased left ventricular ejection fraction (HR, 0.96; 95%CI 0.93-0.99; P=0.0391) were independent predictors of recurrent AF after catheter ablation, but adiponectin was not. Conclusions Our data indicated that adiponectin was partially responsible for progression of AF, but the correlation between adiponectin levels and AF recurrence was not significant.