The impact of CHADS2 score on late stroke after the Cox maze procedure.

Objective: The Heart Rhythm Society, European Heart Rhythm Association, and European Cardiac Arrhythmia Society jointly recommend indefinite warfarin anticoagulation in patients with CHADS2 (congestive heart failure, hypertension, age, diabetes, and stroke) score of at least 2 who have undergone ablation for atrial fibrillation. This study determined the impact of CHADS2 score on risk of late stroke or transient ischemic attack after the performance of a surgical Cox maze procedure.

Methods: A retrospective review of 433 patients who underwent a Cox maze procedure at our institution was conducted.

Structure alignment based on coding of local geometric measures.

Background: A structure alignment method based on a local geometric property is presented and its performance is tested in pairwise and multiple structure alignments. In this approach, the writhing number, a quantity originating from integral formulas of Vassiliev knot invariants, is used as a local geometric measure. This measure is used in a sliding window to calculate the local writhe down the length of the protein chain.