Atrial Fibrillation and Heart Failure: the 13th international meeting in Bologna that will take place next Feb 14-15th 2019 is going to be an outstanding event enlighten many news with a direct clinical impact.

Feb 11, 2018 Cardiotool Uncategorized Commenti disabilitati su Atrial Fibrillation and Heart Failure: the 13th international meeting in Bologna that will take place next Feb 14-15th 2019 is going to be an outstanding event enlighten many news with a direct clinical impact.

---

Is the atrium the main thrombi collector during AF and the unique source of emboli? That is the question that probably have a negative answer. In the meeting there are going to be presented news on the atrial role in order to predict possible systemic emboli. A diseased and therefore arrhythmic atrium is simply giving us a useful advice towards a general high thrombotic status; atrium is not per se going to be main cause of the emboli formation. Those conclusions are coming from different ongoing perspective trials together with the evolving and expanding concept of “atrial cardiomyopathy” that manifests not only with AF episodes but also with the recording of minor high rate arrhythmias such as AHRE.
The old EKG exam may contain a lot of informations that may greatly help the physician to correctly consider a possible atrial disease. Critical EKG traces will be discussed in an open session to focus on the correct atrial cardiomyopathy diagnosis.
There are very recent insight coming from new data on the favorable AF ablation therapy in HF pts that are fibrillating. It is well known how sinusalization may be of great help in pts with high rate AF in order to treat and further prevent HF episodes. However recent perspective studies did enlight a favorable effect of ablation even on prognosis of those patients. The point may be to check for the patients that may have a real clinical benefit. That will be highly discussed by worldwide experts in a devoted session.
What is the role of antiarrhythmic drugs so far and how the best way to employ them for efficacy and security? AADs have a great role even to day but cardiologists should know the right way of their employment in relation to the specific patient. Drugs are not so new but the physicians knowledge generally lowered in the last decade. It is time to come to a new life with simple and practical rules and advices that come from a wide speakers experience.
The meeting will not be focused only on AF but also the HF section will be widely afforded. Is that possible to preview an acute HF episode 1 month earlier with the patient at home? Will CRT specific programming be able to reduce hospitalization and electrical storms?
New data coming from multicenter prospective studies enlarge greatly our diagnostic and therapeutic horizons leading to slowing down of the negative HF evolution. That may change our way of treating the HF patients. Thus a new era full of positive responses for the heart diseased people is here and the Bologna meeting will be basis for those outstanding news.
Alessandro Capucci MD, FESC, FACC, FHRS

---

---

---