Background-We studied atrial activation during induced atrial flutter in the canine sterile pericarditis model to test the hypothesis that the atrial flutter reentrant circuit includes a septal component. Methods and Results-We studied 10 episodes of induced, sustained (>5 minutes) atrial flutter in 9 dogs. In all episodes, the reentrant circuit included a septal component. In 6 episodes, there...

INTRODUCTION Surgical closure of an atrial septal defect (ASD) before the age of 25 years has been demonstrated to reduce complications during adulthood. However, the outcome for patients operated after the age of 25 is still debated. METHODS In a retrospective study we examined the outcome of early and late surgical repair of ASD in adults, as compared with the natural evolution of unoperate...

BACKGROUND In patients with pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH), right ventricular pressure overload eventually causes right heart failure (RHF), leading to a poor prognosis. Right atrial (RA) overload and RA dysfunction occur in patients with PAH-complicated RHF. OBJECTIVES We evaluated RA function using right atrial longitudinal strain (RALS) by two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiogr...

Primary pulmonary hypertension is characterised by a progressive increase in pulmonary artery pressure which eventually leads to right ventricular failure and death. Patients with severe right heart failure—for example, New York Heart Association functional class IV—have the worst prognosis. Although several haemodynamic parameters such as pulmonary artery pressure, right atrial pressure, and c...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the incremental antifibrillatory effect of multisite atrial pacing compared with right atrial pacing in patients with drug refractory paroxysmal atrial fibrillation paced for arrhythmia prevention alone. METHODS In 20 of these patients (mean (SD) age 64 (8) years; 14 female, six male), a single blinded randomised crossover study was performed to investigate the increment...

OBJECTIVES An initial crossover study comparing dual- and single-site right atrial pacing was performed followed by a long-term efficacy and safety evaluation of dual-site right atrial pacing in patients with drug-refractory atrial fibrillation (AF). Also examined was the efficacy of two single-site right atrial pacing modes (high right atrium and coronary sinus ostium) and the long-term need f...

BACKGROUND The appropriate evaluation of atrial electrical function is only possible by means of invasive electrophysiology techniques, which are expensive and therefore not suitable for widespread use. Mechanical atrial function is mainly determined from atrial volumes and volume-derived indices that are load-dependent, time-consuming and difficult to reproduce because they are observer-depend...

AIM To compare systemic right ventricular function by isovolumic myocardial acceleration before and 6 months after the percutaneous closure of atrial septal defects (ASD). MATERIAL AND METHODS Patients admitted to our tertiary center for the percutaneous closure of atrial septal defects between January 2010 and August 2012 constituted the study group. Right ventricular function of patients wa...

Introduction: The present study is aimed to evaluate electrophysiological remodeling of atrioventricular (AV) node and ventricular conduction during experimental atrial fibrillation (AF) model in isolated heart of cirrhotic rats. Methods: Cirrhosis-induced electrophysiological remodeling was evaluated in 24 isolated retrogradely perfused rat hearts in 2 groups (control and cirrhotic). Cirrho...