OBJECTIVE This article presents a study of postoperative atrial fibrillation (AF) and its long-term effects on mortality and heart rhythm. METHODS The study cohort consisted of 571 patients with no history of AF who underwent primary aortocoronary bypass surgery from 1999 to 2000. Postoperative AF occurred in 165/571 patients (28.9%). After a median follow-up of 6 years, questionnaires were o...

Time-domain analysis of intraventricular electrogram morphology during ventricular tachycardia (VT) and sinus rhythm or atrial fibrillation (SR/AF) has been proposed as a method for increasing the specificity of pathological tachycardia detection by antitachycardia devices. However, few studies have validated the use of such analysis with statistical methods. When statistical methods have been ...

This paper describes a model for magnetization reversal in polycrystalline Ferromagnetic/Antiferromagnetic exchange biased bilayers. We assume that the exchange energy can be expanded into cosine power series. We show that it is possible to fit experimental asymmetric shape of hysteresis loops in exchange biased bilayer for any direction of the applied field. The hysteresis asymmetry is discuss...

Background and Purpose—Atrial fibrillation (AF) is an independent risk factor for stroke. Recent studies have demonstrated that the CHA2DS2-VASc scheme is useful for selecting patients who are truly at low risk. The goal of the present study was to compare the risk of ischemic stroke among AF patients with a CHA2DS2-VASc score of 0 (male) or 1 (female) with those without AF. Methods—The study e...

Background and Purpose—Atrial fibrillation (AF) is an independent risk factor for stroke. Recent studies have demonstrated that the CHA2DS2-VASc scheme is useful for selecting patients who are truly at low risk. The goal of the present study was to compare the risk of ischemic stroke among AF patients with a CHA2DS2-VASc score of 0 (male) or 1 (female) with those without AF. Methods—The study e...

Many studies have shown a relationship between atrial fibrillation (AF) and vascular dementia. AF is a major risk factor for stroke, and stroke is the greatest risk factor for vascular dementia. However, the relationship between Alzheimer's disease (AD), the leading cause of dementia, and AF remains unclear. At least four epidemiological studies have reported AF significantly raises the risk of...

Background: Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and an independent risk factor for stroke among the elderly. A role for inflammation in the atrial remodeling as well as development and recurrence of AF is known. Objective: To compare IL-17A between patients with different types of AF and healthy individuals. Methods: IL-17A was measured in sera of 112 patients and 107...

OBJECTIVES This study aims to investigate the impact of newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation (AF) on future major adverse cardiac events (MACE). AF is the most common form of cardiac arrhythmia and is associated with several other cardiovascular (CV) events. Little is known about whether newly diagnosed AF is an independent factor for future MACE, especially in patients without such a history. ...

BACKGROUND Recent studies have reported the importance of high-sensitivity troponin T (hs-cTnT) or skin autofluorescence (AF) as a cardiovascular risk factor. However, little is known about the relationship between these two markers. The aim of this study was to clarify the clinical impact of skin AF on hs-cTnT in hypertensive patients, from the perspective of primary prevention of cardiovascul...

BACKGROUND Prior transcriptional studies of atrial fibrillation (AF) have been limited to specific transcripts, animal models, chronic AF, right atria, or small samples. We sought to characterize the left atrial transcriptome in human AF to distinguish changes related to AF susceptibility and persistence. METHODS AND RESULTS Left atrial appendages from 239 patients stratified by coronary arte...