Atrial Fibrillation, Paroxysmal or Persistent

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a major health problem, with a prevalence of 0.4-1% of the population. It results in high healthcare costs and significant morbidity, especially for patients with severe symptoms. The RASTA-AF randomized control trial (RCT) is designed to answer the following question: does vigorous treatment of AF with aggressive risk factor management plus catheter ablation reduce AF-related outcomes as compared to catheter ablation plus usual care in patients with symptomatic AF and risk factors that promote AF. This study is a multicenter, prospective cohort study that will enrol patients who decline participation in the RASTA-AF RCT but agree to be followed in a registry. The objective of RASTA-Cohort is to determine whether patients who decline participation in the RASTA-AF RCT have different clinical characteristics and quality of life than patients who accept participation in the study, and whether they suffer from worse AF-related outcomes than patients in the RCT.

The study involves endocardial cryoablation of the left and/or right atrium of the heart using the CoolCryo system as an adjunct to mitral valve surgery, with the aim of eliminating atrial fibrillation (AF), which is a common sequelae of mitral valve defects and is associated with an increased risk of ischaemic stroke, heart failure and death.

The current practice of anesthesia for atrial fibrillation catheter ablation （CA） procedure is inconsistent, including general anesthesia, deep sedation, and conscious sedation.Due to the nature of deep sedation, it has been continuously gaining its position as one of the crucial components in standard practices of atrial fibrillation ablation during the last decade. Currently, a considerable number of procedures have been done using conscious sedation. Previous studies explored the benefits obtained from the employment of deep sedation in AF ablation procedures, mainly focused on pain reduction and intra-procedural safety. However, the benefits on long-term rhythmic outcomes, peri-procedural safety as well as benefits on procedural parameters and peri-procedural experiences from patients/ablators/lab staff have yet not to be thoroughly studied. We plan to conduct a prospective, multicenter, randomized, controlled trial to evaluate the benefits of deep sedation in catheter ablation of paroxysmal and persistent AF in multiple prospective, i.e., quantified intraprocedural patients / physicians / lab staffs / mapper clinical specialist experiences, and the procedure safety.

Secretoneurin (SN) is a neuropeptide from the chromogranin family that influences intracellular calcium handling. SN suppresses calcium leakage from the sarcoplasmic reticulum through the ryanodine receptor. SN is a novel biomarker that has shown the potential to predict adverse arrhythmic events.