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Tue, 02.04.2024
Four researchers receive DGK AFNET Young Investigator Award for atrial fibrillation
At the annual meeting of the German Society of Cardiology (DGK), four scientists will be honoured with the new DGK AFNET Young Investigator Award, sponsored by the Atrial Fibrillation Competence Network (AFNET), for current research work on atrial fibrillation. The presentations of the award winners and the award ceremony will take place on Friday 05.04.2024 in Mannheim.
‘This new prize has been established to mark the 20th anniversary of AFNET. It is intended to recognise outstanding results by young researchers working on atrial fibrillation. With this prize, AFNET wants to encourage the next generation to focus on better understanding, more accurate diagnosis and more successful treatment of atrial fibrillation,’ says Paulus Kirchhof, Chairman of the Board of AFNET.
The four research papers nominated for the award will be presented in short talks on Friday morning as part of the Young Investigator Award session on atrial fibrillation. A jury with representatives from AFNET, AGEP and YoungDGK will select the best paper and three ‘runners up’. The papers were dedicated to the catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation. This interventional treatment method is used in patients with atrial fibrillation to cauterise tissue in the left atrium and thereby electrically isolate the pulmonary veins (pulmonary vein isolation). This allows the source of the atrial fibrillation to be eliminated and the arrhythmia to be stopped. Technological advances have now made atrial fibrillation ablation very safe and successful. However, success is not always long-lasting. Optimisation of the ablation procedure is therefore still the subject of research.
Dr Josep Pomes from the University Hospital of Barcelona, Spain, compared different atrial fibrillation ablation procedures, namely pulsed field ablation (PFA), high power short duration ablation (HPSD) and conventional radiofrequency ablation. After ablation, the patients’ sclerotherapy lines were visualised using MRI imaging. The three procedures compared showed differences in the shape of the lines and the occurrence of gaps (1).
Using biomarkers, Dr Miruna-Andreea Popa from the Bordeaux University Hospital in Pessac, France, found that patients who had undergone pulsed field ablation (PFA) for paroxysmal or persistent atrial fibrillation very frequently experienced haemolysis (destruction of red blood cells) afterwards, significantly more frequently than with radiofrequency ablation and depending on the number of ablation procedures (2).
Dr Moritz Rothe from St. Josefs Hospital in Wiesbaden analysed the recurrence of atrial fibrillation after cryo-ablation (sclerotherapy using cold). His study came to the conclusion that the success of the ablation does not only become apparent after 90 days, but even earlier. As soon as recurrences occur, even if this happens within the so-called blanking period, a new ablation should be considered (3).
Dr Nico Erhard from the German Heart Centre Munich investigated epicardial fatty tissue, which is suspected of promoting atrial fibrillation and other diseases. In ablation patients, a new type of computer tomographic imaging procedure was used to quantitatively determine such fatty tissue in the atria. The measurements showed that the proportion of fat was higher in men than in women and increased with age and body mass index (BMI) (4).
AFNET board member Prof Stephan Willems, who will attend the award ceremony on Friday evening, comments: ‘We are delighted that the best abstracts on the topic of atrial fibrillation will also be honoured for the first time. With the DGK AFNET Young Investigator Award atrial fibrillation, we want to regularly support young scientists in this field in the future.’
The DGK AFNET Young Investigator Award atrial fibrillation initiated by AFNET is a new addition to the series of DGK Young Investigator Awards, which are presented at the annual conference for the best abstracts by young scientists. Previously, work in the fields of heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias, structural heart disease and coronary heart disease has been honoured.
Abstracts
- Pomes J et al. Head-to-head comparison of Pulsed Field Ablation, very High Power-Short Duration Ablation and conventional Radiofrequency Ablation by LGE-MRI-based ablation lesion assessment
- Poma MA et al. Hemolysis after pulsed-field ablation for atrial fibrillation: Characterization and clinical significance
- Rothe M et al. Quantitating the role of early relapse after CryoPVI for atrial fibrillation
- Erhard N et al. Associations between atrial epicardial fat quantified by semi-automated CT segmentation and gender, BMI, cholesterol levels in AF patients: Results from the Prospective AFAT study