BACKGROUND Atrial fibrillation is associated with increased risk of stroke and thromboembolism, possibly by conferring a prothrombotic or hypercoagulable state. However, it is unclear whether or not this differs in the clinical subgroups of chronic atrial fibrillation patients, that is, in those with paroxysmal, persistent or permanent atrial fibrillation. We therefore hypothesized that: (i) th...

OBJECTIVE To assess long term mortality and identify factors associated with the development of permanent atrial fibrillation after atrioventricular (AV) node ablation for drug refractory paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING UK tertiary centre teaching hospital. PATIENTS Patients admitted to the University Hospital Birmingham between January 1995 and ...

Objective: To assess heart rhythm and predictive factors associated with sinus rhythm after one year in patients with rheumatic valve disease undergoing concomitant surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. Operative mortality, survival and occurrence of stroke after one year were also evaluated. Methods: Retrospective longitudinal observational study of 103 patients undergoing rheumatic mit...

AIMS Surgical treatment for atrial fibrillation is now feasible in selective cases. The aim of this study was to assess the electrophysiological properties of patients undergoing atrial compartment operation for chronic atrial fibrillation. METHODS AND RESULTS Electrophysiological studies were performed in 20 mitral valve patients with atrial fibrillation who had been maintained in sinus rhyt...

Retrospective study of 1176 patients with known coronary heart disease by cardiac catheterisation disclosed 10 patients (0.8%) with atrial fibrillation. Comparison with 25 randomly selected patients with coronary heart disease with sinus rhythm showed that atrial fibrillation correlated significantly with impaired haemodynamic function, mitral regurgitation, and abnormalities of left ventricula...

delayed-enhancement MRI. Circ Cardiovasc Imaging 2010;3:231–9. 29. Volgman AS, Soble JS, Neumann A, Mukhtar KN, Iftikhar F, Vallesteros A et al. Effect of left atrial size on recurrence of atrial fibrillation after electrical cardioversion: atrial dimension versus volume. Am J Card Imaging 1996;10:261–5. 30. Tsao HM, Wu MH, Huang BH, Lee SH, Lee KT, Tai CT et al. Morphologic remodeling of pulmo...

Objective: To assess long term mortality and identify factors associated with the development of permanent atrial fibrillation after atrioventricular (AV) node ablation for drug refractory paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: UK tertiary centre teaching hospital. Patients: Patients admitted to the University Hospital Birmingham between January 1995 and De...

BACKGROUND Transcatheter left atrial appendage closure is an alternative therapy for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation patients. These procedures are currently guided with transesophageal echocardiography and fluoroscopy in most centers. As intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) is commonly used in other catheter-based procedures, we sought to determine the safety and effectiveness of intra...

In a prospective study of 72 patients with stroke and atrial fibrillation, we classified strokes as cardioembolic or noncardioembolic based on arterial assessment using Doppler sonography and angiography. We analyzed and cross-tabulated 18 clinical characteristics and found four to be significantly associated with a cardioembolic mechanism: stroke with onset during activity and peak deficit at ...

Atrial fibrillation ablation is a complex and challenging procedure. Appropriate patient selection is the most critical step to ensure safe and successful atrial fibrillation ablation procedure. The DECAAF study (Delayed-Enhancement MRI Determinant of Successful Radiofrequency Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation) showed that atrial tissue fibrosis, as estimated by delayed enhancement magne...