2023 ACC/AHA/ACCP/HRS Guideline for the Diagnosis and Management of Atrial Fibrillation: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

AIM: The "2023 ACC/AHA/ACCP/HRS Guideline for the Diagnosis and Management of Atrial Fibrillation" provides recommendations to guide clinicians in the treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation. METHODS: A comprehensive literature search was conducted from May 12, 2022, to November 3, 2022, encompassing studies, reviews, and other evidence conducted on human subjects that were published in English from PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other selected databases relevant to this guideline. Additional relevant studies, published through November 2022, during the guideline writing process, were also considered by the writing committee and added to the evidence tables, where appropriate. STRUCTURE: Atrial fibrillation is the most sustained common arrhythmia, and its incidence and prevalence are increasing in the United States and globally. Recommendations from the "2014 AHA/ACC/HRS Guideline for the Management of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation" and the "2019 AHA/ACC/HRS Focused Update of the 2014 AHA/ACC/HRS Guideline for the Management of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation" have been updated with new evidence to guide clinicians. In addition, new recommendations addressing atrial fibrillation and thromboembolic risk assessment, anticoagulation, left atrial appendage occlusion, atrial fibrillation catheter or surgical ablation, and risk factor modification and atrial fibrillation prevention have been developed.

2021 ACC/AHA/SCAI Guideline for Coronary Artery Revascularization: Executive Summary: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

AIM: The executive summary of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association/Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions coronary artery revascularization guideline provides the top 10 items readers should know about the guideline. In the full guideline, the recommendations replace the 2011 coronary artery bypass graft surgery guideline and the 2011 and 2015 percutaneous coronary intervention guidelines. This summary offers a patient-centric approach to guide clinicians in the treatment of patients with significant coronary artery disease undergoing coronary revascularization, as well as the supporting documentation to encourage their use. METHODS: A comprehensive literature search was conducted from May 2019 to September 2019, encompassing studies, reviews, and other evidence conducted on human subjects that were published in English from PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Collaboration, CINHL Complete, and other relevant databases. Additional relevant studies, published through May 2021, were also considered. Structure: Recommendations from the earlier percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass graft surgery guidelines have been updated with new evidence to guide clinicians in caring for patients undergoing coronary revascularization. This summary includes recommendations, tables, and figures from the full guideline that relate to the top 10 take-home messages. The reader is referred to the full guideline for graphical flow charts, supportive text, and tables with additional details about the rationale for and implementation of each recommendation, and the evidence tables detailing the data considered in the development of this guideline.

2017 American Heart Association Focused Update on Adult Basic Life Support and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Quality: An Update to the American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is a lifesaving technique for victims of sudden cardiac arrest. Despite advances in resuscitation science, basic life support remains a critical factor in determining outcomes. The American Heart Association recommendations for adult basic life support incorporate the most recently published evidence and serve as the basis for education and training for laypeople and healthcare providers who perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Digoxin: its role in contemporary medicine.

Digoxin has been a key therapeutic for heart failure and atrial tachyarrhythmias for over 200 years following Withering's groundbreaking work depicting the therapeutic benefit of the common botanical foxglove in his 1785 monograph. The use of digoxin preceded any randomised evidence or even basic understanding of its mechanism of action. Over the past two decades, there has been mounting evidence further challenging the safety and efficacy of digoxin, while multiple other therapies for both heart failure and atrial tachyarrhythmias have proven to be more effective and safe. Altogether, digoxin still has an important role in contemporary pharmacotherapeutics, though its role remains controversial and should be reserved for selective patients and clinical situations, with careful attention to serum concentrations.

The heartfelt music of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Musicologists, historians, and physicians have speculated that Beethoven experienced cardiac arrhythmias, and that they manifest in specific compositions. Based on what is known about Beethoven's medical issues, this seems a reasonable assumption to make. This essay strengthens the hypothesis that Beethoven suffered from cardiac arrhythmias by placing Beethoven's music in its historical context, and by identifying several compositions that may reflect Beethoven's experience of an arrhythmia.

Catastrophic neurologic syndrome with dramatic ECG changes.

Cerebrogenic ECG abnormalities, especially prominent T wave inversions and prolongation of the QT(U) interval, are well-described. Brady- and tachyarrhythmias, including polymorphic VT, have been also described in the setting of neurologic injury. We report an unusual case of a 22-year-old man who presented with idiopathic acute encephalopathy. His hospital course was complicated by persistent fevers, along with refractory seizures treated with propofol. Serial ECG findings included marked ventricular repolarization prolongation with bursts of torsade de pointes, diffuse ST elevations simulating extensive myocardial ischemia or infarction, as well as a Brugada-like pattern. To our knowledge, this case is the first reported with the combination of such findings in a patient with a catastrophic neurologic syndrome.

2023 ACC/AHA/ACCP/HRS Guideline for the Diagnosis and Management of Atrial Fibrillation: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

AIM: The "2023 ACC/AHA/ACCP/HRS Guideline for the Diagnosis and Management of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation" provides recommendations to guide clinicians in the treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation. METHODS: A comprehensive literature search was conducted from May 12, 2022, to November 3, 2022, encompassing studies, reviews, and other evidence conducted on human subjects that were published in English from PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other selected databases relevant to this guideline. Additional relevant studies, published through November 2022, during the guideline writing process, were also considered by the writing committee and added to the evidence tables, where appropriate. STRUCTURE: Atrial fibrillation is the most sustained common arrhythmia, and its incidence and prevalence are increasing in the United States and globally. Recommendations from the "2014 AHA/ACC/HRS Guideline for the Management of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation" and the "2019 AHA/ACC/HRS Focused Update of the 2014 AHA/ACC/HRS Guideline for the Management of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation" have been updated with new evidence to guide clinicians. In addition, new recommendations addressing atrial fibrillation and thromboembolic risk assessment, anticoagulation, left atrial appendage occlusion, atrial fibrillation catheter or surgical ablation, and risk factor modification and atrial fibrillation prevention have been developed.

Duration of resuscitation efforts and survival after in-hospital cardiac arrest: an observational study.

BACKGROUND: During in-hospital cardiac arrests, how long resuscitation attempts should be continued before termination of efforts is unknown. We investigated whether duration of resuscitation attempts varies between hospitals and whether patients at hospitals that attempt resuscitation for longer have higher survival rates than do those at hospitals with shorter durations of resuscitation efforts. METHODS: Between 2000 and 2008, we identified 64,339 patients with cardiac arrests at 435 US hospitals within the Get With The Guidelines­Resuscitation registry. For each hospital, we calculated the median duration of resuscitation before termination of efforts in non-survivors as a measure of the hospital's overall tendency for longer attempts. We used multilevel regression models to assess the association between the length of resuscitation attempts and risk-adjusted survival. Our primary endpoints were immediate survival with return of spontaneous circulation during cardiac arrest and survival to hospital discharge. FINDINGS: 31,198 of 64,339 (48·5%) patients achieved return of spontaneous circulation and 9912 (15·4%) survived to discharge. For patients achieving return of spontaneous circulation, the median duration of resuscitation was 12 min (IQR 6-21) compared with 20 min (14-30) for non-survivors. Compared with patients at hospitals in the quartile with the shortest median resuscitation attempts in non-survivors (16 min [IQR 15-17]), those at hospitals in the quartile with the longest attempts (25 min [25-28]) had a higher likelihood of return of spontaneous circulation (adjusted risk ratio 1·12, 95% CI 1·06-1·18; p<0·0001) and survival to discharge (1·12, 1·02-1·23; 0·021). INTERPRETATION: Duration of resuscitation attempts varies between hospitals. Although we cannot define an optimum duration for resuscitation attempts on the basis of these observational data, our findings suggest that efforts to systematically increase the duration of resuscitation could improve survival in this high-risk population. FUNDING: American Heart Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, and the National Institutes of Health.