Poststroke Cardiovascular Management: Current Concepts, Integrated Care, and Future Developments.

After an ischemic stroke patients often have cardiovascular complications known as stroke-heart syndrome. The cardiovascular management after stroke has a significant impact on life expectancy as well as the quality of life. The development and implementation of management pathways to improve outcomes for patients with stroke-heart syndrome requires a multidisciplinary involvement from health care professionals from primary, secondary and tertiary prevention levels. A holistic, integrated care approach could follow the ABC pathway: A) Appropriate antithrombotic therapy in all stroke/TIA patients in the acute phase as well as recommendations for the longer term treatment regimen are required to avoid recurrent stroke. B) For better functional and psychological status the assessment of poststroke cognitive and physical impairment, depression, and anxiety as part of routine poststroke work-up in every patient is necessary. C) Cardiovascular risk factors and comorbidities management further includes cardiovascular work-up, adapted drug therapy, but often also lifestyle changes that are central to the success of integrated care for stroke-heart syndrome. Greater patient and family/caregiver involvement in planning actions and the input and feedback on optimizing stroke care pathways is needed. Achieving integrated care is challenging and highly context dependent on different healthcare levels. A tailored approach will utilize a variety of enabling factors. In this narrative review, we summarize the current evidence and outline potential factors that will contribute to the successful implementation of integrated cardiovascular care for stroke-heart syndrome management.

Integrated care for optimizing the management of stroke and associated heart disease: a position paper of the European Society of Cardiology Council on Stroke.

The management of patients with stroke is often multidisciplinary, involving various specialties and healthcare professionals. Given the common shared risk factors for stroke and cardiovascular disease, input may also be required from the cardiovascular teams, as well as patient caregivers and next-of-kin. Ultimately, the patient is central to all this, requiring a coordinated and uniform approach to the priorities of post-stroke management, which can be consistently implemented by different multidisciplinary healthcare professionals, as part of the patient 'journey' or 'patient pathway,' supported by appropriate education and tele-medicine approaches. All these aspects would ultimately aid delivery of care and improve patient (and caregiver) engagement and empowerment. Given the need to address the multidisciplinary approach to holistic or integrated care of patients with heart disease and stroke, the European Society of Cardiology Council on Stroke convened a Task Force, with the remit to propose a consensus on Integrated care management for optimizing the management of stroke and associated heart disease. The present position paper summarizes the available evidence and proposes consensus statements that may help to define evidence gaps and simple practical approaches to assist in everyday clinical practice. A post-stroke ABC pathway is proposed, as a more holistic approach to integrated stroke care, would include three pillars of management: A: Appropriate Antithrombotic therapy.B: Better functional and psychological status.C: Cardiovascular risk factors and Comorbidity optimization (including lifestyle changes).

Catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation: current status, techniques, outcomes and challenges

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common human arrhythmia. Interventional treatment with catheter ablation is an established technique that is increasingly applied and has become one of the main treatment modalities in patients with AF. Ablation results in significant improvement of symptoms and the quality of life. There is as yet no clear evidence of any impact of the procedure on hard clinical endpoints, except in patients with heart failure, who seem to benefit significantly from ablation. The cornerstone of the procedure is the achievement of pulmonary vein isolation. Radiofrequency energy is the main applied energy source, but cryoballoon ablation has emerged as a safe and effective alternative to radiofrequency ablation. Additional ablation strategies and novel technical features have been proposed but without unequivocal proof of clinical benefit. The most promising of these seems to be substrate mapping of the left atrium with substrate modification in areas with low voltage as an adjunct to pulmonary vein isolation. Complication rates remain considerable despite accumulated experience and can be partly reduced by application of preventive measures.

Can we rely on machines? Device-detected atrial high rates correspond well with atrial arrhythmias in cardiac resynchronization recipients.

AIMS: The aim of the study was to verify in what proportion of patients, device-detected atrial high rate (AHR) episodes are indeed atrial arrhythmias (AAs). We investigated also the reasons for inappropriate arrhythmia classification and assessed if patients with misdiagnosed arrhythmias have distinct characteristics that would help to identify them. METHODS AND RESULTS: The study population consisted of 304 consecutive patients implanted with cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators (CRT-Ds) and subsequently monitored via remote monitoring for a median follow-up (FU) of 30.5 months. Intracardiac electrograms of every recorded AHR episode were assessed and classified (AA vs. no AA) by two experienced cardiologists. During FU, 14 386 episodes of AHR were recorded and classified in 176 (57.9%) patients. In 89.2% of them, these episodes were true AA (94% atrial fibrillation, 62% de novo). The reasons for AHR misdiagnosis were atrial far-field signals (89.5%) and noise (10.5%). The mean per cent of day spent in AHR (54.9 vs. 5.86%; P < 0.001) and the occurrence of periods with low CRT pacing (82.8 vs. 55%; P = 0.003) were significantly higher in AA subjects than in those with misdiagnosed AHR. Episode duration of properly detected AHRs was longer than that of misdiagnosed AHRs. Higher per cent of time spent in AHR was an independent marker of appropriate arrhythmia detection [adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1.04; P = 0.023]. CONCLUSION: Nearly two-thirds of CRT-D patients had AHR episodes within 2.5 years after implantation. Almost 90% of AHRs were indeed AA. Misdetections were caused by far-field sensing or noise. A two-step diagnostic algorithm (>9% of time spent in AHRs and episode duration >36 s) allowed for proper detection of AA with a high hit-rate and specificity.

Implantation feasibility, procedure-related adverse events and lead performance during 1-year follow-up in patients undergoing triple-site cardiac resynchronization therapy: a substudy of TRUST CRT randomized trial.

INTRODUCTION: This substudy was to assess implantation feasibility and long-term safety of triple-site resynchronization therapy (CRT) in a series of consecutive patients included in a randomized trial. METHODS AND RESULTS: One hundred consecutive patients enrolled into Triple-Site Versus Standard Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Randomized Trial were analyzed. Eligibility criteria included NYHA class III-IV, sinus rhythm, QRS ≥ 120 milliseconds, left ventricular ejection fraction ≤35%, and significant mechanical dyssynchrony. Patients were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to conventional or triple-site CRT with defibrillator-cardioverter. After 12 months of resynchronization 30% of patients with conventional resynchronization and 12.5% with triple-site CRT were in NYHA functional class III or IV (P < 0.05). Implantation of triple-site systems was significantly longer (median 125 minutes vs 96 minutes; P < 0.001), with higher fluoroscopic exposure, especially in patients with very enlarged left ventricle or pulmonary hypertension. Implantation success-rate was similar in the triple-site and conventional group (94% vs 98%; P = NS); however, additional techniques had to be used in a greater proportion of the triple-site patients (33.3% vs 16%; P < 0.05). Long-term lead performance tests revealed significantly higher pacing threshold and lower impedance in the triple-site group. The 1-year incidence of serious, CRT-related adverse events was similar in triple-site and conventional group (20.8% vs 30%; P = NS). CONCLUSIONS: Triple-site CRT is associated with more pronounced functional improvement than standard resynchronization. This form of pacing is equally safe and feasible as the conventional CRT. However, triple-site procedure is more time-consuming, associated with higher radiation exposure and the need to use additional techniques. Triple-site resynchronization is associated with less favorable electrical lead characteristics.

Immediate ventricular tachycardia after abnormal microvolt T-wave alternans.

Microvolt T-wave alternans (MTWA) is a promising non-invasive method of evaluating repolarization abnormalities. Its presence is strongly related to the occurrence of malignant ventricular tachyarrhythmias and is therefore regarded as a risk marker for sudden cardiac death. Most recent studies have described the usefulness of MTWA in selecting patients who may benefit from a cardioverter-defibrillator. This study presents two cases of patients suffering from ischemic cardiomyopathy, who underwent an MTWA test. Episodes of ventricular tachycardia occurred immediately after the end of the tests, with abnormal results.