BACKGROUND The success rate of catheter ablation for persistent atrial fibrillation (AF) is still far from satisfactory. Identification of patients who will benefit from ablation is highly desirable. We investigated the predictive value of noninvasive AF complexity parameters derived from standard 12-lead ECGs for AF termination and long-term success of catheter ablation and compared them with ...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between atrial fibrillation (AF) and pericardial fat. BACKGROUND Pericardial fat is visceral adipose tissue that possesses inflammatory properties. Inflammation and obesity are associated with AF, but the relationship between AF and pericardial fat is unknown. METHODS Pericardial fat volume was measured using computed t...

Objective: To test the hypothesis that atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with changes in the expression of connexins 40 and 43 in the left atrium with more pronounced changes in mitral valve disease than in lone AF. Methods: Protein concentrations of connexin 40 and connexin 43 were analysed in left atrial tissue of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. One group of patients had lone AF (n ...

BACKGROUND Hyperthyroidism is one of the common causes of atrial fibrillation (AF), and AF is associated with increased morbidity and mortality due to thromboembolism. The sinus rhythm maintenance rate of hyperthyroidism-induced AF patients after conversion to sinus rhythm is excellent. The present study was undertaken to assess the efficacy and safety of bepridil, a multichannel blocker, in pa...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to find risk factors that are associated with complications of cerebral infarction in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and to discover useful association rules among these factors. METHODS The risk factors with respect to cerebral infarction were selected using logistic regression analysis with the Wald's forward selection approach. The rules to ...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with changes in the expression of connexins 40 and 43 in the left atrium with more pronounced changes in mitral valve disease than in lone AF. METHODS Protein concentrations of connexin 40 and connexin 43 were analysed in left atrial tissue of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. One group of patients had lone AF (n ...

AIMS Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common rhythm disorder. Because of the high recurrence rate of AF after cardioversion and because of potential side effects of electrical cardioversion, it is clinically important to predict persistence of sinus rhythm after electrical cardioversion before it is attempted. The aim of our study was the development of a mathematical model by "genetic" pro...

Department of Electrophysiology, Hamburg, Germany Catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF), particularly longer lasting AF, often requires extensive ablation within the atria and their annexed structures. Immediate procedural success is commonly defined as termination of AF during ablation. While this end point is associated with fewer AF recurrences and maintained sinus rhythm, recurrent ...

BACkgRouNd: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia in patients undergoing cardiac valve surgery. AF in patients undergoing surgery can be categorized as preoperative AF (PPAF) or postsurgical AF (PSAF). oBjeCtIVe: To determine whether PSAF in patients undergoing valve surgery had an impact on mortality compared with patients in sinus rhythm or PPAF. MethodS: A total of 556 conse...

Atrial Fibrillation (AF), the most common sustained arrhythmia, has a strong genetic component, but the mechanism by which common genetic variants lead to increased AF susceptibility is unknown. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified that the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) most strongly associated with AF are located on chromosome 4q25 in an intergenic region distal to t...