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Reply to the Editor—Incidence of sudden cardiac death in high school athletes: Implications for cardiovascular screening
e4 Reply to the Editor—Incidence of sudden cardiac death in high school athletes: Implications for cardiovascular screening
We thank Dr. Littman for his critical review of our article. Our study was the first to systematically investigate the relationship between maintenance of sinus rhythm (SR) as a time-dependent variable and clinical outcomes after radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in a large cohort of patients with paroxysmal or persistent atrial fibrillation (AF). We carefully considered the role of baseline variables, antiarrhythmic drugs, and anticoagulation on long-term outcomes. The objective of our study was to evaluate the effect of maintenance of SR on long-term outcomes after RFA. As such, the interpretation should be limited to benefits of SR after
Heart Rhythm, Vol 12, No 1, January 2015 RFA. Our results show that maintenance of SR was associated with a significant reduction in cardiovascular mortality. We implicitly used the term “associated” throughout the article to emphasize the association between SR and outcomes. Our study is affected by the inherent limitations of all observational studies. As already discussed, the results of ongoing large-scale randomized trials will be helpful to better assess the causal role of RFA on long-term clinical outcomes. Hamid Ghanbari, MD Hakan Oral, MD [email protected] University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
We thank Dr. Littman for his critical review of our article. Our study was the first to systematically investigate the relationship between maintenance of sinus rhythm (SR) as a time-dependent variable and clinical outcomes after radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in a large cohort of patients with paroxysmal or persistent atrial fibrillation (AF). We carefully considered the role of baseline variables, antiarrhythmic drugs, and anticoagulation on long-term outcomes. The objective of our study was to evaluate the effect of maintenance of SR on long-term outcomes after RFA. As such, the interpretation should be limited to benefits of SR after
Heart Rhythm, Vol 12, No 1, January 2015 RFA. Our results show that maintenance of SR was associated with a significant reduction in cardiovascular mortality. We implicitly used the term “associated” throughout the article to emphasize the association between SR and outcomes. Our study is affected by the inherent limitations of all observational studies. As already discussed, the results of ongoing large-scale randomized trials will be helpful to better assess the causal role of RFA on long-term clinical outcomes. Hamid Ghanbari, MD Hakan Oral, MD [email protected] University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan