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Abstract Purpose  Post-operative atrial fibrillation (POAF) is a common complication after cardiac surgery and often leads to poorly tolerated fast ventricular rates. Negative dromotropic drugs are not always effective and may not be well tolerated in heart failure patients. Aim of this study is to verify if high-frequency stimulation of the right inferior fat pad (RIFPS) allows an effective decrease in ventricular rate (VR) during POAF. Methods  We enrolled 32 consecutive patients submitted to bypass; during surgery, a temporary heart wire was implanted in a site where RIFPS evoked a functional AV block. During POAF, RIFPS was delivered from the heart wire to decrease VR. Results  Intra-operative RIFPS evoked complete AV block in 29 patients (91%). Fourteen patients (44%) developed POAF (mean VR 127 ± 12 bpm). In these patients, RIFPS achieved a 25% reduction of VR and complete AV block with 6.0 ± 1.9 and 7.5 ± 1.8 V (duration 0.2 ms, frequency 50 Hz), respectively. Conclusion  Epicardial RIFPS represents an effective and feasible technique to decrease VR during POAF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

: Aims Modulation of cardiac stem cell (CSC) differentiation with minimal manipulation is one of the main goals of clinical applicability of cell therapy for heart failure. CSCs, obtained from human myocardial bioptic specimens and grown as cardiospheres (CSps) and cardiosphere-derived cells (CDCs), can engraft and partially regenerate the infarcted myocardium, as previously described. In this paper we assessed the hypothesis that exposure of CSps and CDCs to extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMFs), tuned at Ca2+ ion cyclotron energy resonance (Ca2+-ICR), may drive their differentiation towards a cardiac-specific phenotype. : Methods and results A significant increase in the expression of cardiac markers was observed after 5 days of exposure to Ca2+-ICR in both human CSps and CDCs, as evidenced at transcriptional, translational, and phenotypical levels. Ca2+ mobilization among intracellular storages was observed and confirmed by compartmentalized analysis of Ca2+ fluorescent probes. : Conclusions These results suggest that ELF-EMFs tuned at Ca2+-ICR could be used to drive cardiac-specific differentiation in adult cardiac progenitor cells without any pharmacological or genetic manipulation of the cells that will be used for therapeutic purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]