Cardio Round-up: AFib Less Deadly Than It Used To Be; Anger and HF; and More

A Decline in the Deadliness of AFib?

Authors for this study calculated hazard ratios for the association between time varying atrial fibrillation (AFib), and also estimated the difference between restricted mean survival times (adjusted) between those with AFib and matched referents at 10 years after diagnosis of AFib. The primary outcome measure was all-cause mortality. The study included 5,671 participants. , after 10 years following AFib diagnosis, the adjusted difference in survival times between those with AFib and those without decreased by 31% (from -2.9 years in period 1 to -2.1 years in period 2 to -2.0 years in period 3 (P for trend=0.003).

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https://www.docwirenews.com/condition-center/atrial-fibrillation/atrial-fibrillation-less-deadly-than-in-past-decades-analysis/

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Women with Peripheral Artery Disease Have More Depressive Symptoms

According to the results of this study, more women than men (21.1% vs. 12.9%; P<0.001) had severe depressive symptoms. The adjusted model revealed that patients with depressive symptoms had worse health status at every time point (P<0.0001 for all), with similar results seen for the EQ-5D Visual Analogue Scale Scores. Depressive symptoms explained 19% of the association between sex differences in the 1-year Peripheral Artery Questionnaire summary scores, the authors wrote. Sex differences were not observed for the magnitude in 1-year change in health status scores.

https://www.docwirenews.com/docwire-pick/cardiology-picks/pad-peripheral-artery-disease-women-depressive-symptoms/

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COVID-19 Changed Treatment and Outcomes for Acute MI

Authors for this paper performed segmented regression analysis on a cohort of more than 14,700 acute myocardial infarction patients in order to determine differences in weekly case outcomes, which were separated into three groupings: before COVID-19 (December 2018 to February 22, 2020), early COVID-19 (February 23, 2020 to March 28, 2020), and later COVID-19 (March 29, 2020 to May 16, 2020). They adjusted in-hospital mortality using an observed-to-expected ratio and a multivariable model adjusted for covariates. According to the results, acute MI-related hospitalizations decreased at a rate of -19.0 (95% CI, -29.0 to -9.0) cases per week for five weeks during the early COVID-19 period.  That number increased at a rate of +10.5 (95% CI, 4.6 to 16.5) cases per week by the later COVID-19 period.

https://www.docwirenews.com/docwire-pick/cardiology-picks/acute-myocardial-infarction-covid-19-case-rates-treatments-approaches-outcomes/

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Stress and Anger May Exacerbate Heart Failure: Study

Researchers for this study enrolled 24 heart failure patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) who completed daily assessments of perceived anger, stress, and other negative emotions for a period of seven days. Patients then underwent a laboratory mental stress protocol. The researchers then conducted 2D Doppler electrocardiography testing on patients at rest and during sequential anger arithmetic tasks. A 2D test was performed to assess indices of diastolic function. According to the results,  The authors also reported that age-adjusted linear regression revealed a link between seven-day anger and baseline E/e’, and that patients who reported greater anger in the prior week to mental stress showed higher resting left ventricular pressure.

https://www.docwirenews.com/docwire-pick/cardiology-picks/heart-failure-stress-physical-effects-left-ventricular-function/