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IntroductionThe implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is effective for the prevention of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in patients with heart failure and a reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). The benefit of the ICD in patients with advanced CKD, remains elusive. Moreover, the benefit of the ICD in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) and HFrEF who are cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) recipients may be attenuated.HypothesisWe hypothesized that patients with CKD who are CRT recipients may derive less benefit from the ICD due to the competing risk of dying prior to experiencing an arrhythmia.MethodsThe study population included 1,015 patients receiving CRT with defibrillator (CRT-D) device for primary prevention of SCD who were enrolled in either (Multicenter Automated Defibrillator Implantation Trial) MADIT-CRT trial or the Ranolazine in High-Risk Patients with Implanted Cardioverter Defibrillator (RAID) trial. The cohort was divided into two groups based on the stage of CKD: those with Stage 1 to 3a KD, labeled as (S1-S3a)KD. The second group included patients with Stage 3b to stage 5 kidney disease, labeled as (S3b-S5)KD. The primary endpoint was any ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF) (Any VT/VF).ResultsThe cumulative incidence of Any VT/VF was 23.5% in patients with (S1-S3a)KD and 12.6% in those with (S3b-S5)KD (p

BackgroundCardioversion (CV) for atrial fibrillation (AF) is common. We aimed to assess changes in QTc over time following electrical CV (ECV) for persistent AF, and to compare the benefit of using continuous Holter monitoring vs. conventional follow-up by ECG.MethodsProspective observational cohort study. We comprised 90 patients admitted to our center for elective ECV due to persistent AF who were prospectively enrolled from July 2017 to August 2018. All patients underwent 7-days Holter started prior to ECV. Baseline QTc was defined as median QTc during 1 h post ECV. The primary endpoint was QTc prolongation defined as QTc ≥500 ms, or ≥10% increase (if baseline QTc was >480 ms). Conventional monitoring was defined as 2-h ECG post ECV.ResultsMean age was 67 ± 11 years and 61% were male. Median baseline QTc was 452 ms (IQ range: 431–479 ms) as compared with a maximal median QTc of 474 ms (IQ range: 433–527 ms; p

Cardiological disorders contribute to a significant portion of the global burden of disease. Cardiology can benefit from Big Data, which are generated and released by different sources and channels, like epidemiological surveys, national registries, electronic clinical records, claims-based databases (epidemiological Big Data), wet-lab, and next-generation sequencing (molecular Big Data), smartphones, smartwatches, and other mobile devices, sensors and wearable technologies, imaging techniques (computational Big Data), non-conventional data streams such as social networks, and web queries (digital Big Data), among others. Big Data is increasingly having a more and more relevant role, being highly ubiquitous and pervasive in contemporary society and paving the way for new, unprecedented perspectives in biomedicine, including cardiology. Big Data can be a real paradigm shift that revolutionizes cardiological practice and clinical research. However, some methodological issues should be properly addressed (like recording and association biases) and some ethical issues should be considered (such as privacy). Therefore, further research in the field is warranted.

Background: Long-term morbidity and mortality data among ischemic heart disease (IHD) patients of different ethnicities are conflicting. We sought to determine the independent association of ethnicity and all-cause mortality over two decades of follow-up of Israeli patients.Methods: Our study comprised 15,524 patients including 958 (6%) Arab patients who had been previously enrolled in the Bezafibrate Infarction Prevention (BIP) registry between February 1, 1990, and October 31, 1992, and subsequently followed-up for long-term mortality. We compared clinical characteristics and outcomes of Israeli Arabs and Jews. Propensity score matching (PSM) (1:2 ratios) was used for validation.Results: Arab patients were significantly younger (56 ± 7 years vs. 60 ± 7 years; p < 0.001; respectively), and had more cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that all-cause mortality was significantly higher among Arab patients (67 vs. 61%; log-rank p < 0.001). Multivariate adjusted analysis showed that mortality risk was 49% greater (HR 1.49; 95% CI: 1.37–1.62; p < 0.001) among Arabs.Conclusions: Arab ethnicity is independently associated with an increased 20-year all-cause mortality among patients with established IHD.

Objective: To estimate the burden of myocarditis (MC), alcoholic cardiomyopathy (AC), and other cardiomyopathy (OC) for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017.Methods: We collected detailed information on MC, AC, and OC between 1990 and 2017 from the Global Burden of Disease study 2017, which was designed to provide a systematic assessment of health loss due to diseases and injuries in 21 regions, covering 195 countries and territories. Estimates of MC, AC, and OC burden were produced using a standard Cause of Death Ensemble model and a Bayesian mixed-effects meta-regression tool, and included prevalence, deaths, years lived with disability (YLDs), and years of life lost (YLLs). All estimates were presented as counts, age-standardized rates per 100,000 people and percentage change, with 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs).Results: Worldwide, there were 1.80 million (95% UI 1.64–1.98) cases of MC, 1.62 million (95% UI 1.37–1.90) cases of AC and 4.21 million (95% UI 3.63–4.87) cases of OC, contributing to 46,486 (95% UI 39,709–51,824), 88,890 (95% UI 80,935–96,290), and 233,159 (95% UI 213,677–248,289) deaths in 2017, respectively. Furthermore, globally, there were 131,376 (95% UI 90,113–183,001) YLDs and 1.26 million (95% UI 1.10–1.42) YLLs attributable to MC, 139,087 (95% UI 95,134–196,130) YLDs and 2.84 million (95% UI 2.60–3.07) YLLs attributable to AC, and 353,325 (95% UI 237,907–493,908) YLDs and 5.51 million (95% UI 4.95–5.99) YLLs attributable to OC in 2017. At the national level, the age-standardized prevalence rates varied by 10.4 times for MC, 252.6 times for AC and 38.1 times for OC; the age-standardized death rates varied by 43.9 times for MC, 531.0 times for AC and 43.3 times for OC; the age-standardized YLD rates varied by 12.4 times for MC, 223.7 times for AC, and 34.1 times for OC; and the age-standardized YLL rates varied by 38.4 times for MC, 684.8 times for AC, and 36.2 times for OC. Between 1990 and 2017, despite the decreases in age-standardized rates, the global numbers of prevalent cases, deaths, YLDs, and YLLs have increased for all the diseases.Conclusion: Accurate assessment of the burden of MC, AC, and OC is essential for formulating effective preventative prevention and treatment programs and optimizing health system resource allocation. Our results suggest that MC, AC, and OC remain important global public health problems with increasing numbers of prevalent cases, deaths, YLDs, and YLLs over the past decades, and there are significant geographic variations in the burden of these diseases. Further research is warranted to expand our knowledge of potential risk factors and to improve the prevention, early detection and treatment of these diseases.