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BackgroundAtrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia in post-industrialized populations. Older age, hypertension, obesity, chronic inflammation, and diabetes are significant atrial fibrillation risk factors, suggesting that modern urban environments may promote atrial fibrillation.ObjectiveHere we assess atrial fibrillation prevalence and incidence among tropical horticulturalists of the Bolivian Amazon with high levels of physical activity, a lean diet, and minimal coronary atherosclerosis, but also high infectious disease burden and associated inflammation.MethodsBetween 2005-2019, 1314 Tsimane aged 40-94 years (52% female) and 534 Moseten Amerindians aged 40-89 years (50% female) underwent resting 12-lead electrocardiograms to assess atrial fibrillation prevalence. For atrial fibrillation incidence assessment, 1059 (81% of original sample) Tsimane and 310 Moseten (58%) underwent additional ECGs (mean time to follow up 7.0, 1.8 years, respectively).FindingsOnly one (male) of 1314 Tsimane (0.076%) and one (male) of 534 Moseten (0.187%) demonstrated atrial fibrillation at baseline. There was one new (female) Tsimane case in 7395 risk years for the 1059 participants with >1 ECG (incidence rate = 0.14 per 1,000 risk years). No new cases were detected among Moseten, based on 542 risk years.ConclusionTsimane and Moseten show the lowest levels of atrial fibrillation ever reported, 1/20 to ~1/6 of rates in high-income countries. These findings provide additional evidence that a subsistence lifestyle with high levels of physical activity, and a diet low in processed carbohydrates and fat is cardioprotective, despite frequent infection-induced inflammation. Findings suggest that atrial fibrillation is a modifiable lifestyle disease rather than an inevitable feature of cardiovascular aging.

We present this case of a 22-year-old woman with congenital heart disease as the youngest reported patient, to the best of our knowledge, to successfully undergo treatment of medically refractory torrential tricuspid regurgitation with the MitraClip system as an adjunct to guideline directed therapy. (Level of Difficulty: Advanced.).

We describe a case of atypical carcinoid heart disease. A 62-year-old woman with well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumor metastatic to the liver and lymph nodes presented with recurrent unilateral pleural effusions and lower extremity edema. Multimodality imaging and workup resulted in the diagnosis of carcinoid-related constrictive pericarditis, a rare form of carcinoid heart disease. (Level of Difficulty: Intermediate.).

BackgroundLibman-Sacks endocarditis, characterized by Libman-Sacks vegetations, is common in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and is commonly complicated with embolic cerebrovascular disease. Thus, accurate detection of Libman-Sacks vegetations may lead to early therapy and prevention of their associated complications. Although two-dimensional (2D) transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has high diagnostic value for detection of Libman-Sacks vegetations, three-dimensional (3D) TEE may allow improved detection, characterization, and clinical correlations of Libman-Sacks vegetations.MethodsTwenty-nine patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (27 women; mean age, 34 ± 12 years) prospectively underwent 40 paired 3D and 2D transesophageal echocardiographic studies and assessment of cerebrovascular disease manifested as acute clinical neurologic syndromes, neurocognitive dysfunction, or focal brain injury on magnetic resonance imaging. Initial and repeat studies in patients were intermixed in a blinded manner with paired studies from healthy controls, deidentified, coded, and independently interpreted by experienced observers unaware of patients' clinical and imaging data.ResultsThe results of 3D TEE compared with 2D TEE were more often positive for mitral or aortic valve vegetations, and 3D TEE detected more vegetations per study and determined larger sizes of vegetations (P ≤ .03 for all). Also, 3D TEE detected more vegetations on the anterior mitral leaflet, anterolateral and posteromedial scallops, and ventricular side or both atrial and ventricular sides of the leaflets (P

BackgroundLambl's excrescences (LEx) are detected by transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and are characterized as thin, elongated, and hypermobile structures located at the leaflets' coaptation point of the heart valves. The association of LEx with cerebrovascular disease (CVD) is still undefined and yet patients with LEx and suspected CVD receive unproven effective antiplatelet or anticoagulant therapy or even undergo valve surgery. Also, the association of LEx with aging and atherogenic, inflammatory, or thrombogenic parameters has not been reported.MethodsSeventy-seven patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) (71 women, age 37 ± 12 years) and 26 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (22 women, age 34 ± 11 years) prospectively underwent routine history and physical exam, transcranial Doppler, brain MRI, TEE, carotid duplex, and clinical and laboratory evaluations of atherogenesis, inflammation, platelet activity, coagulation, and fibrinolysis. Subjects without stroke/TIA on enrollment (with and without LEx) had a median follow-up of 57 months.ResultsOn enrollment, 33 (43%) of 77 patients had CVD manifested as acute stroke/TIA (23 patients), cerebromicroembolism by transcranial Doppler (17 patients), or cerebral infarcts by MRI (14 patients). Mitral or aortic valve LEx were equally frequent in healthy controls (46%) as in patients with and without any CVD (39 and 43%), stroke/TIA (35 and 43%), cerebromicroembolism (41 and 42%), or cerebral infarcts (36 and 43%) (all p ≥ 0.72). Also, other mechanisms for CVD other than LEx such as Libman-Sacks vegetations, patent foramen ovale or interatrial septal aneurysm, aortic or carotid atherosclerosis, or thrombogenesis were found in ≥94% of patients with CVD. In addition, 36 subjects with and 44 without LEx had similar low incidence of stroke/TIA (1 (1.3%) and 2 (2.5%), respectively, p = 1.0) during follow-up. Finally, LEx were not associated with aging, atherogenic risk factors, atherosclerosis, inflammation, or thrombogenesis.ConclusionsIn this study, LEx are similarly prevalent in healthy controls and SLE patients, are not associated with CVD, and are not associated with pathogenic risk factors. Therefore, the study findings suggest that LEx may not be cardioembolic substrates, may not represent pathologic valve structures, and may not require therapy.