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Background: Breast Cancer and cardiovascular diseases are amongst the two leading causes of mortality in the United States, and the two conditions are connected in part because of recognized cardiotoxicity of cancer treatments. The aim of this study is to investigate the predictors risk factors for thirty-day readmission in female breast cancer survivors presenting with acute heart failure. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of acute heart failure (AHF) hospitalization in female patients with breast cancer in 2019 using the National Readmission Database (NRD), which is the largest publicly available all-payer inpatient readmission database in the United States. Our study sample included adult female patients aged 18 years and older. The primary outcome of interest was the rate of 30- day readmission. Results: In 2019, there were 8332 total index admissions for AHF in females with breast cancer and 7776 patients were discharged alive. The mean age was 74.4 years (95% CI: 74, 74.7). The percentage of readmission at 30 days among those discharged alive was 21.8% (n = 1699). Hypertensive heart disease with chronic kidney disease accounted for the majority of readmission in AHF with breast cancer followed by sepsis, acute kidney injury, respiratory failure, pneumonia, and atrial fibrillation. Demographic factors including higher burden of comorbidities predict readmission. The total in-hospital mortality in index admission was 6.67% (n = 556) and for readmitted patients was 8.77% (n = 149). The mean length of stay for index admission was 7.5 days (95% CI: 7.25, 7.75). Conclusions: Readmission of female breast cancer survivors presenting with AHF is common and largely be attributed to high burden of comorbidities including hypertension, and chronic kidney disease. A focus on close outpatient follow-up will be beneficial in lowering readmissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) is prevalent in about 30% to 60% of patients undergoing cardiac surgery, leading to worse outcomes. Botulinum toxin type A (BTX) epicardial injection has been proposed to prevent POAF by impairing cholinergic signaling., Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis synthesized randomized controlled trials, which were retrieved by searching PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, SCOPUS, and Cochrane through November 23, 2022. RevMan version 5.4 was used to pool dichotomous outcomes using risk ratio (RR) and continuous outcomes using mean differences (MD) presented with the corresponding confidence interval (CI)., Results: Three randomized controlled trials with 509 patients (308 in the BTX group and 205 in the placebo group) were included in the analysis. There was no difference between BTX and placebo regarding POAF incidence (RR 0.81 with 95% CI [0.65, 1.00], P  = 0.05), postoperative hospital length of stay in days (MD -0.03 with 95% CI [-0.54, 0.49], P  = 0.91), all-cause mortality (RR 1.64 with 95% CI [0.22, 12.17], P  = 0.63), any adverse event (RR 1.03 with 95% CI [0.94, 1.12], P  = 0.51), or any serious adverse event (RR 0.89 with 95% CI [0.68, 1.15], P  = 0.36)., Conclusion: There was no difference between the epicardial fat injection of BTX versus placebo for preventing POAF., Competing Interests: The authors declare no funding or conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Baylor University Medical Center.)