Thank you all for tuning in to this year’s afib.no meeting! We were thrilled to see so many of you there and impressed by the quality of the presentations.

Day 1 started with the team behind the NEXAF study, who introduced each of the sub-studies in the project. NEXAF is an afib.no-funded multicenter study on physical activity and AF. Bjarne Martens Nes, Marius Myrstad, Bente Morseth and Kristoffer Johansen presented the planned activities from each site; In Trondheim they will look at how physical activity influences AF in a randomized controlled trial, in Bærum they will evaluate detraining in endurance athletes with AF, and in Tromsø, they will use observational data to evaluate whether physical activity may reduce adverse events in individuals with AF. It is an impressive collaboration between different centers in Norway that have come together in the afib.no network. We hope that this can be of inspiration to other researchers in our network, to build collaborations across centers and disciplines in afib.no.

A hot topic was the results from the AF screening studies LOOP and STROKESTOP, hot off the press in Lancet. We were lucky to have both Jesper Hastrup Svendsen from Copenhagen, Denmark, and Johan Engdahl, Stockholm, Sweden, present some very interesting results from their respective study, leaving us a little more puzzled regarding who, when and how to screen for AF. Søren Diederichsen and Litten Bertelsen – both from Copenhagen – gave us a deeper insight into ECG-data and MRI markers in the LOOP study.

The abstract session was a highlight again this year. We enjoyed brilliant presentation ranging from cardiac fibroblast accumulation in horses with persistent AF, to wearables: the ECG247 Smart Heart Sensor and also epidemiologic studies on prevalence and incidence of AF, use of OAC in individuals with AF and intermediate stroke-risk and the relation between physical activity, left atrial size and AF. All presentations were of high quality, so the evaluation committee had a difficult task picking a winner. For the second time, Arnela Saljic from Copenhagen, Denmark won. Congratulations!

On day 2, we had a nice re-encounter with our early-career session. Maja-Lisa Løchen and Jan Pål Loennechen gave us some valuable insight on how to combine a clinical and academic career. The digital platform is challenging for a session like this, where we aim for an informal and highly interactive setting. But we pulled it off – and look forward to yet another session next year, where we can be in the same room together.

The last session of the meeting involved some of our newest international network members. Thomas Jespersen from Copenhagen, Denmark, showed us interesting data from porcine AF models. Gwilym Morris from Manchester, UK, gave some insight into remodeling in atrial arrhythmia, whereas Guido Claessen from Leuven, Belgium – and partner in the NEXAF study – presented the Pro@Heart and Master@Heart studies, evaluating physical activity in AF.

We would like to thank everyone for their invaluable contribution to the meeting. It was two very inspiring days with excellent quality presentations.

Next year’s meetings will be planned to be in-person:

• Afib.no workshop on sex-differences in AF – April 21, 2022 – at venue tbd, Oslo, Norway
• 6^th annual afib.no meeting 2022 – September 29-30, 2022 – at Lysebu, Oslo, Norway

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