No abstract

Aorto-cavitary fistulous tract formation is an uncommon but extremely serious complication of IE. In-hospital mortality was exceptionally high despite aggressive management with surgical intervention in the majority of patients. Prosthetic IE, urgent surgery, and the development of HF identify the subgroup of patients with IE and ACF that have significantly increased risk of in-hospital death.

No abstract

This large pooled multicentre analysis of five prospective registries shows that combining CA and LAAC is feasible, safe, and successful. Long-term follow-up shows greatly reduced stroke and bleeding rates despite recurrence of AF in more than half of the patients.

Aims Radiofrequency ablation creates irreversible cardiac damage through resistive heating and this temperature change results in a generator impedance drop. Evaluation of a novel local impedance (LI) technology measured exclusively at the tip of the ablation catheter found that larger LI drops were indicative of more effective lesion formation. We aimed to evaluate whether LI drop is associated with conduction block in patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF) undergoing pulmonary vein isolation (PVI). Methods and results Sixty patients underwent LI-blinded de novo PVI using a point-by-point ablation workflow. Pulmonary vein rings were divided into 16 anatomical segments. After a 20-min waiting period, gaps were identified on electroanatomic maps. Median LI drop within segments with inter-lesion distance ≤6 mm was calculated offline. The diagnostic accuracy of LI drop for predicting segment block was assessed using receiver operating characteristic analysis. For segments with inter-lesion distance ≤6 mm, acutely blocked segments had a significantly larger LI drop [19.8 (14.1–27.1) Ω] compared with segments with gaps [10.6 (7.8–14.7) Ω, P < 0.001). In view of left atrial wall thickness differences, the association between LI drop and block was further evaluated for anterior/roof and posterior/inferior segments. The optimal LI cut-off value for anterior/roof segments was 16.1 Ω (positive predictive value for block: 96.3%) and for posterior/inferior segments was 12.3 Ω (positive predictive value for block: 98.1%) where inter-lesion distances were ≤6 mm. Conclusion The magnitude of LI drop was predictive of acute PVI segment conduction block in patients with paroxysmal AF. The thinner posterior wall required smaller LI drops for block compared with the thicker anterior wall.