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Risk factors predictive of atrial fibrillation after lung cancer surgery

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Abstract

Postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF), the most frequent arrhythmia after pulmonary resection, is a cause of both morbidity and mortality. Being able to predict the risk of POAF before surgery would help us evaluate the surgical risk and plan prophylaxis. We investigated the reported preoperative risk factors associated with the incidence of POAF and found that the recommended predictive factors were quite variable. Therefore, we evaluated the previously reported preoperative risk factors for POAF using our institutional data. We discuss our findings in this short review. Male gender, resected lung volume, brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), and left ventricular early transmitral velocity/mitral annular early diastolic velocity (E/e′) calculated by echocardiography were suggested as independent predictors for POAF, but the predictive values of each individual parameter were not high. The lack of definitive predictors for POAF warrants further investigations by gathering the reported knowledge, to establish an effective preoperative examination strategy.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Hajime Kasai from the Department of Respirology, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, for helping create the figure for this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Thoracic Surgery, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-8-1 Inohana Chuo-ku, Chiba City, Chiba, 260-8670, Japan

    Takekazu Iwata, Kaoru Nagato, Takahiro Nakajima, Hidemi Suzuki, Shigetoshi Yoshida & Ichiro Yoshino

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  1. Takekazu Iwata
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  2. Kaoru Nagato
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  3. Takahiro Nakajima
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Correspondence to Takekazu Iwata.

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Iwata, T., Nagato, K., Nakajima, T. et al. Risk factors predictive of atrial fibrillation after lung cancer surgery. Surg Today 46, 877–886 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00595-015-1258-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00595-015-1258-4

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