BACKGROUND Atrial fibrillation (AF) is recognized as a common complication of open cardiac surgery, occurring in up to 65% of patients. The advancing age and increasing risk profile of patients receiving aortic valve replacement (AVR) surgery is expected to raise incidence of new-onset postoperative AF resulting in potentially higher risk of adverse outcomes. In the early postoperative course, ...

Slagsvold KH, Johnsen AB, Rognmo Ø, Høydal MA, Wisløff U, Wahba A. Mitochondrial respiration and microRNA expression in right and left atrium of patients with atrial fibrillation. Physiol Genomics 46: 505–511, 2014. First published May 13, 2014; doi:10.1152/physiolgenomics.00042.2014.—Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia with a potential to cause serious complications....

BACKGROUND Patients who were hospitalized for community-based pneumonia frequently had pre-existing atrial fibrillation (AF) and had subsequent cardiovascular complications. Whether patients who had AF would be susceptible to the development of hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) is a serious concern but this has not been investigated. In our clinics, we have made empirical observation of such su...

AIM Accumulation level of fluorescent advanced glycation end products (AGEs) in the skin can be measured non-invasively as skin autofluorescence (skin AF) by autofluorescence reader. The aim of this study was to assess possible associations between skin AF and diabetic complications, especially early-stage atherosclerosis, in Japanese type 1 diabetic patients. METHODS Skin AF was measured by ...

There are over 385,000 cases of atrial fibrillation (AF) in the Netherlands, with over 45,000 new cases each year. Among other things, AF patients are at high risk of stroke. Patients are often prescribed oral anticoagulation, such as vitamin K antagonists (VKA), to mitigate these risks. A recently introduced class of oral anticoagulants, non-vitamin K antagonists (NOAC), is quickly gaining cur...

Human amniotic fluid obtained at amniocentesis, when cultured, generates at least two morphologically distinct mesenchymal stem/stromal cell (MSC) subsets. Of these, the spindle shaped amniotic fluid MSCs (SS-AF-MSCs) contain multipotent cells with enhanced adipogenic, osteogenic and chondrogenic capacity. Here, we demonstrate, for the first time, the capacity of these SS-AF-MSCs to support neo...

In eukaryotic cells, the actin and microtubule (MT) cytoskeletal networks are dynamic structures that organize intracellular processes and facilitate their rapid reorganization. In plant cells, actin filaments (AFs) and MTs are essential for cell growth and morphogenesis. However, dynamic interactions between these two essential components in live cells have not been explored. Here, we use spin...

This thesis is concerned with asymptotic properties of the eigenvalues of high-dimensional sample covariance and correlation matrices under an infinite fourth moment of the entries. In the first part, we study the joint distributional convergence of the largest eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix of a p-dimensional heavy-tailed time series when p converges to infinity together with the ...

BACKGROUND Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common arrhythmia and an important risk factor for ischaemic stroke (IS). AIM To assess the frequency of AF, including paroxysmal (pxAF), persistent (psAF) and permanent AF (pmAF), in patients hospitalised due to IS as well as to establish the natural course of AF and IS prognosis. METHODS A prospective, non-interventional study of consecutive acute ...

As a progressive atrial myopathy, the etiopathogenesis of AF is multifactorial. For example, valvular heart disease are found in 30% of AF patients and in mitral stenosis and/or regurgitation chronic atrial stretch is a well known pathophysiological factor in the occurrence of AF [1,3,4]. Indeed, mitral valve prolapse with or without regurgitation, calcification of the mitral annulus, tricuspid...