International journal of cardiology. Heart & vasculature
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Int J Cardiol Heart Vasc · Feb 2020
Management of patients with newly-diagnosed atrial fibrillation: Insights from the BALKAN-AF survey.
BALKAN-AF evaluated patterns of atrial fibrillation (AF) management in real-world clinical practice in the Balkans. The objectives were: to assess the proportion of patients with first-diagnosed AF in the BALKAN-AF cohort and to compare the management of patients with newly-diagnosed AF and those with previously known AF in clinical practice. ⋯ In BALKAN-AF survey, patients with newly-diagnosed AF were more often hospitalized, less often received OAC and were more likely to receive SAPT alone. The use of OAC for stroke prevention has not been driven by the individual patient stroke risk.
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Int J Cardiol Heart Vasc · Feb 2020
Prevalence, risk factors, and type of sleep apnea in patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.
Recent studies have suggested an association between sleep apnea (SA) and atrial fibrillation (AF). We aimed to study the prevalence, characteristics, risk factors and type of sleep apnea (SA) in ablation candidates with paroxysmal AF. ⋯ In our AF population, SA was highly prevalent and predominantly obstructive. The high prevalence of SA detected in this study may indicate that SA is under-recognized in patients with AF. None of the screening questionnaires predicted SA reliably.
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Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy has greatly improved treatment of various advanced cancers but increasing use of ICI therapy has exposed the risk of ICI-related cardiovascular side effects. Immune checkpoints are inhibitory regulators of T cell activation and mediate T cell effector functions during physiological responses to shield from autoimmune reactions. ICI therapy for advanced cancers promotes immune activity against tumors and is applied within a broad collective of cancer patients. ⋯ Different therapeutic implications for suspected ICI-related cardiotoxicity and their limitations are critically summarized. We highlight current gaps of knowledge concerning the underlying pathomechanisms and clinical characteristics of ICI-related cardiotoxicity. Future challenges are depicted for optimum cardio-oncology care of patients receiving ICI therapy.
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Int J Cardiol Heart Vasc · Dec 2019
A deep neural network for 12-lead electrocardiogram interpretation outperforms a conventional algorithm, and its physician overread, in the diagnosis of atrial fibrillation.
Automated electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretations may be erroneous, and lead to erroneous overreads, including for atrial fibrillation (AF). We compared the accuracy of the first version of a new deep neural network 12-Lead ECG algorithm (Cardiologs®) to the conventional Veritas algorithm in interpretation of AF. ⋯ Cardiologs® 12-lead ECG algorithm improves the interpretation of atrial fibrillation.
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Int J Cardiol Heart Vasc · Sep 2019
Conventional echocardiographic parameters or three-dimensional echocardiography to evaluate right ventricular function in percutaneous edge-to-edge mitral valve repair (PMVR).
In this study, we evaluated right ventricular (RV) function before and after percutaneous mitral valve repair (PMVR) using conventional echocardiographic parameters and novel 3DE data sets acquired prior to and directly after the procedure. ⋯ Thus, RV function may be an important non-invasive parameter to add to the predictive parameters indicating a potential clinical benefit from treatment of severe mitral regurgitation using PMVR.