Two members of the network presented their work at the EHRA (European Heart Rhythm Association) congress in Barcelona March 18th-20th. Tingting Feng, PhD-fellow at NTNU, presented her work on AF and obesity in a “rapid fire” oral abstract session. She has found that the risk for developing AF is similar among healthy and unhealthy obese people in data from HUNT-3. Also, the severity of obesity was positively associated with AF risk.
Trygve Berge, PhD-fellow at Bærum Hospital, Vestre Viken Hospital Trust and University of Oslo, presented the poster “Prevalence and risk factors for atrial fibrillation at 63-65 years: data from the Akershus Cardiac Examination (ACE) 1950 Study”. He identified a higher prevalence of validated AF before age 65 years, than was has been previously reported; 4.5% in the general population at this age. The additional yield of single time point screening for AF by standard 12-lead ECG was very limited; only 0.3% previously unknown AF was found.
Until last year, the EHRA congress was held only every second year, jointly with CARDIOSTIM. Now the ESC/EHRA has taken over and is aiming to organize the largest European congress on cardiac arrhythmias, yearly in March. The next EHRA congress will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, March 2019.
Highlights from the congress included the presentation of new ESC guidelines on syncope, and late-breaking results from several trials, including the AXAFA-AFNET trial, comparing continuous treatment with apixaban vs. warfarin during AF ablation procedures. For more news, check out EHRA 2018 (link: https://www.escardio.org/Congresses-&-Events/EHRA-Congress )
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