Rationale: Cardiac fibrosis contributes to pathogenesis of atrial fibrillation (AF), which is the most commonly sustained arrhythmia and a major cause of morbidity and mortality.

Recovery of left atrial mechanical function is related to the duration of atrial fibrillation before cardioversion. These findings have important implications for assessing the early hemodynamic benefit of successful cardioversion.

Atrial ejection force provides a physiologic assessment of atrial systolic function and is a potentially useful index for assessing atrial contribution to diastolic performance. In patients who successfully underwent cardioversion from atrial fibrillation, atrial ejection force improved over several weeks only in the subgroup in which sinus rhythm was maintained.

Our findings do not support the hypothesis that hypercholesterolemia or low HDL-C are important risk factors for all-cause mortality, coronary heart disease mortality, or hospitalization for myocardial infarction or unstable angina in this cohort of persons older than 70 years.

Fish oil treatment for 2 years does not promote major favorable changes in the diameter of atherosclerotic coronary arteries.