Author Interviews, Heart Disease, University Texas, Weight Research / 11.05.2016
Weight Loss Improves Quality of Life But Not Atrial Fibrillation Ablation Outcomes
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Sanghamitra Mohanty, MD MS FHRS
Director, translational research, Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute and Associate Professor (affiliate) Dell Medical School
What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Mohanty: In the last few years, several trials from a research group in Australia have generated tremendous interest in life-style modifications to manage AF more effectively. These studies reported significant decrease in arrhythmia burden and symptom severity and improvement in ablation outcome in patients with paroxysmal and persistent atrial fibrillation. We investigated the impact of weight-loss on procedure outcome in terms of arrhythmia burden, quality of life and arrhythmia-free survival in long-standing persistent (LSPAF) patients undergoing catheter ablation.
Our main findings were the following;
- In patients with long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation, weight loss improved quality of life but had no impact on symptom burden and long-term ablation outcome
- No change in AF type or status was detected after the weight loss
- Extensive ablation including pulmonary vein (PV) isolation plus ablation of posterior wall and non-PV triggers resulted in comparable outcome in both groups at 1-year follow-up, irrespective of weight-loss interventions (63.8% vs 59.3%, p=0.68).