Dronedarone Versus Sotalol in Antiarrhythmic Drug-Naive Veterans With Atrial Fibrillation.

BACKGROUND: Sotalol and dronedarone are both used for maintenance of sinus rhythm for patients with atrial fibrillation. However, while sotalol requires initial monitoring for QT prolongation and proarrhythmia, dronedarone does not. These treatments can be used in comparable patients, but their safety and effectiveness have not been compared head to head. Therefore, we retrospectively evaluated the effectiveness and safety using data from a large health care system. METHODS: Using Veterans Health Administration data, we identified 11 296 antiarrhythmic drug-naive patients with atrial fibrillation prescribed dronedarone or sotalol in 2012 or later. We excluded patients with prior conduction disease, pacemakers or implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, ventricular arrhythmia, cancer, renal failure, liver disease, or heart failure. We used natural language processing to identify and compare baseline left ventricular ejection fraction between treatment arms. We used 1:1 propensity score matching, based on patient demographics, comorbidities, and medications, and Cox regression to compare strategies. To evaluate residual confounding, we performed falsification analysis with nonplausible outcomes. RESULTS: The matched cohort comprised 6212 patients (3106 dronedarone and 3106 sotalol; mean [±SD] age, 71±10 years; 2.5% female; mean [±SD] CHA2DS2-VASC, 2±1.3). The mean (±SD) left ventricular ejection fraction was 55±11 and 58±10 for dronedarone and sotalol users, correspondingly. Dronedarone, compared with sotalol, did not demonstrate a significant association with risk of cardiovascular hospitalization (hazard ratio, 1.03 [95% CI, 0.88-1.21]) or all-cause mortality (hazard ratio, 0.89 [95% CI, 0.68-1.16]). However, dronedarone was associated with significantly lower risk of ventricular proarrhythmic events (hazard ratio, 0.53 [95% CI, 0.38-0.74]) and symptomatic bradycardia (hazard ratio, 0.56 [95% CI, 0.37-0.87]). The primary findings were stable across sensitivity analyses. Falsification analyses were not significant. CONCLUSIONS: Dronedarone, compared with sotalol, was associated with a lower risk of ventricular proarrhythmic events and conduction disorders while having no difference in risk of incident cardiovascular hospitalization and mortality. These observational data provide the basis for prospective efficacy and safety trials.

Inadvertent lead placement in the left ventricle: a case report and brief review.

Inadvertent lead placement in the left ventricle (LV) is an uncommon and often under-diagnosed complication of cardiac device implantation. Thromboembolic (TE) events are common and usually secondary to fibrosis or thrombus formation on or around the lead. Anticoagulation can prevent TE events. Percutaneous and surgical LV lead extractions have been performed successfully, but the risks of percutaneous lead removal are not well-defined. In this report, we describe a case of inadvertent LV lead placement and briefly review the contemporary literature.

Myocardial perfusion SPECT reconstruction: receiver operating characteristic comparison of CAD detection accuracy of filtered backprojection reconstruction with all of the clinical imaging information available to readers and solely stress slices iteratively reconstructed with combined compensation.

BACKGROUND: Past receiver operating characteristic (ROC) studies have demonstrated that single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) perfusion imaging by use of iterative reconstruction with combined compensation for attenuation, scatter, and detector response leads to higher area under the ROC curve (A(z)) values for detection of coronary artery disease (CAD) in comparison to the use of filtered backprojection (FBP) with no compensations. A new ROC study was conducted to investigate whether this improvement still holds for iterative reconstruction when observers have available all of the imaging information normally presented to clinical interpreters when reading FBP SPECT perfusion slices. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 87 patient studies including 50 patients referred for angiography and 37 patients with a lower than 5% likelihood for CAD were included in the ROC study. The images from the two methods were read by 4 cardiology fellows and 3 attending nuclear cardiologists. Presented for the FBP readings were the short-axis, horizontal long-axis, and vertical long-axis slices for both the stress and rest images; cine images of both the stress and rest projection data; cine images of selected cardiac-gated slices; the CEQUAL-generated stress and rest polar maps; and an indication of patient gender. This was compared with reading solely the iterative reconstructed stress slices with combined compensation for attenuation, scatter, and resolution. With A(z) as the criterion, a 2-way analysis of variance showed a significant improvement in detection accuracy for CAD for the 7 observers (P = .018) for iterative reconstruction with combined compensation (A(z) of 0.895 +/- 0.016) over FBP even with the additional imaging information provided to the observers when scoring the FBP slices (A(z) of 0.869 +/- 0.030). When the groups of 3 attending physicians or 4 cardiology fellows were compared separately, the iterative technique was not statistically significantly better; however, the A(z) for each of the 7 observers individually was larger for iterative reconstruction than for FBP. Compared with results from our previous studies, the additional imaging information did increase the diagnostic accuracy of FBP for CAD but not enough to undo the statistically significantly higher diagnostic accuracy of iterative reconstruction with combined compensation. CONCLUSIONS: We have determined through an ROC investigation that included two classes of observers (experienced attending physicians and cardiology fellows in training) that iterative reconstruction with combined compensation provides statistically significantly better detection accuracy (larger A(z)) for CAD than FBP reconstructions even when the FBP studies were read with all of the extra clinical nuclear imaging information normally available.

Brain natriuretic peptide levels fall rapidly after cardioversion of atrial fibrillation to sinus rhythm.

BACKGROUND: Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels have been reported to fall following cardioversion of atrial fibrillation (AF). The mechanism for the fall in BNP has not been elucidated and the potential confounding effects of sedation have not been investigated. Sedation may alter BNP levels via its effects on loading conditions. Accordingly, we studied whether BNP levels change shortly after cardioversion and attempted to control for possible effects of sedation. METHODS: BNP levels were obtained before and after cardioversion in patients with AF and in a control group of patients undergoing intravenous conscious sedation for transesophageal echocardiography. RESULTS: BNP levels dropped (260 +/- 255 vs. 190 +/- 212 pg/ml, p < 0.05) 40 min after cardioversion, decreasing in 33 of 41 subjects who achieved sinus rhythm. By contrast, mean BNP did not fall in subjects in whom cardioversion was not successful. The change in BNP level was not related to the degree of change in heart rate. No control subject experienced a change in cardiac rhythm; BNP levels increased (195 +/- 407 vs. 238 +/- 458 pg/ml, p < 0.05) in 18/22 subjects after sedation. Baseline BNP levels were elevated in subjects with AF, and BNP levels were elevated in parallel with heart failure symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The rapid fall in BNP after cardioversion (1) may reflect prompt hemodynamic improvement associated with rhythm change and (2) does not appear to be due to the effects of sedation.