Chronic atrial fibrillation ablation impact on endocrine and mechanical cardiac functions.

Aims: Assess the impact of persistent/permanent atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation on endocrine and mechanical cardiac functions.

Methods And Results: In all, 43 patients (40 males, 53 +/- 12 years) undergoing persistent/permanent AF ablation had atrial (ANP) and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) measurements before day 1, 3, and 3 months after ablation. In the same period of time transthoracic echocardiography was performed.

Global and regional myocardial function quantification by two-dimensional strain: application in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Objectives: Recently, a novel method to measure strain from standard two-dimensional images has been developed. Our goal was to characterize global and regional systolic function abnormalities using this technique in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

Background: Strain has been proposed as a sensitive tool to detect early systolic function abnormalities in HCM.