Gender Differences in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation Undergoing Electrical Cardioversion.

Background: Current recommendations on the rhythm control strategy for treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF) are more restrictive than a decade ago. Gender may play a role in decisions on the management of AF, including application of electrical cardioversion.

Methods: We analyzed clinical characteristics by gender in patients participating in the observational survey about stable patients underlying cardioversion in Spain (CARDIOVERSE) study (n=915), a survey of the practice of electrical cardioversion in 67 Spanish hospitals.

Reproducibility of electrocardiographic findings in patients with suspected reflex neurally-mediated syncope.

The reproducibility of electrocardiographic (ECG) recordings in syncopal recurrences and the diagnostic role of nonsyncopal arrhythmias are not well known. The objective of this study was to analyse the reproducibility of the ECG findings recorded with implantable loop recorders in 41 patients with suspected neurally-mediated syncope who were included in the International Study on Syncope of Uncertain Origin-2 study and that had > or =2 events recorded by implantable loop recorders. In these patients, the electrocardiogram obtained with the first documented syncope (index syncope) was compared with other recorded events.