Skin sympathetic nerve activity precedes the onset and termination of paroxysmal atrial tachycardia and fibrillation.

BACKGROUND: Skin sympathetic nerve activity (SKNA) is useful for estimating sympathetic tone in humans. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to test the hypotheses that (1) increased SKNA is associated with the onset and termination of paroxysmal atrial tachycardia (AT) and atrial fibrillation (AF) and (2) sinoatrial node response to SKNA is reduced in patients with more frequent AT or AF episodes. METHODS: SKNA and electrocardiogram were recorded in 11 patients (4 men and 7 women; average age 66 ± 10 years), including 3 patients with AT (11 ± 18 episodes per patient) and 8 patients with AF (24 ± 26 episodes per patient). RESULTS: The average SKNA (aSKNA) 10 seconds before AT onset was 1.07 ± 0.10 µV and 10 seconds after termination was 1.27 ± 0.10 µV; both were significantly (P = .032 and P < .0001) higher than that during sinus rhythm (0.97 ± 0.09 µV). The aSKNA 10 seconds before AF onset was 1.34 ± 0.07 µV and 10 seconds after termination was 1.31 ± 0.07 µV; both were significantly (P < .0001) higher than that during sinus rhythm (1.04 ± 0.07 µV). The aSKNA before onset (P < .0001) and after termination (P = .0011) was higher in AF than in AT. The sinus rate correlated (P < .0001) with aSKNA in each patient (average r = 0.74; 95% confidence interval 0.65-0.84). The r value in each patient negatively correlated with the number of AT and AF episodes (r = -0.6493; 95% confidence interval -0.8990 to -0.08073; P = .0306). CONCLUSION: Increased SKNA was observed both at the onset and termination of AT and AF. Patients with more frequent AT and AF episodes had a weak correlation between sinus rate and aSKNA, suggesting sinoatrial node remodeling by tachycardia.

Addressing outpatient continuity for ambulatory training: A novel tool for longitudinal primary care sign out.

BACKGROUND: We created a tool to improve communication among health professional trainees in the ambulatory setting. The tool was devised to both inform practice partner teams about high-risk patients and assign patient follow-up issues to team members. Team members were internal medicine residents and nurse practitioner fellows in the VA Connecticut Healthcare System Center of Excellence in Primary Care Education (CoEPCE), an interprofessional training model in primary care. METHODS: We used a combination of Likert scale response questions and open ended questions to evaluate trainee attitudes before and after the implementation of the tool, as well as solicited feedback to improve the tool. RESULTS: After using the primary care sign out tool, trainees expressed greater confidence that they could identify high-risk patients that had been cared for by other trainees and that important patient care issues would be followed up by others when they were not in clinic. In terms of areas for improvement, respondents wanted to have the sign out tool posted online. DISCUSSION: Our sign out tool offers a strategy that others can use to improve communication and knowledge of shared patients within teams comprised of interprofessional trainees.

Evaluation of the Genetic Basis of Familial Aggregation of Pacemaker Implantation by a Large Next Generation Sequencing Panel.

BACKGROUND: The etiology of conduction disturbances necessitating permanent pacemaker (PPM) implantation is often unknown, although familial aggregation of PPM (faPPM) suggests a possible genetic basis. We developed a pan-cardiovascular next generation sequencing (NGS) panel to genetically characterize a selected cohort of faPPM. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We designed and validated a custom NGS panel targeting the coding and splicing regions of 246 genes with involvement in cardiac pathogenicity. We enrolled 112 PPM patients and selected nine (8%) with faPPM to be analyzed by NGS. RESULTS: Our NGS panel covers 95% of the intended target with an average of 229x read depth at a minimum of 15-fold depth, reaching a SNP true positive rate of 98%. The faPPM patients presented with isolated cardiac conduction disease (ICCD) or sick sinus syndrome (SSS) without overt structural heart disease or identifiable secondary etiology. Three patients (33.3%) had heterozygous deleterious variants previously reported in autosomal dominant cardiac diseases including CCD: LDB3 (p.D117N) and TRPM4 (p.G844D) variants in patient 4; TRPM4 (p.G844D) and ABCC9 (p.V734I) variants in patient 6; and SCN5A (p.T220I) and APOB (p.R3527Q) variants in patient 7. CONCLUSION: FaPPM occurred in 8% of our PPM clinic population. The employment of massive parallel sequencing for a large selected panel of cardiovascular genes identified a high percentage (33.3%) of the faPPM patients with deleterious variants previously reported in autosomal dominant cardiac diseases, suggesting that genetic variants may play a role in faPPM.