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Aims To describe atrial fibrillation (AF) management in member countries of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and to verify cardiology practices against guidelines. Methods and results Among 182 hospitals in 35 countries, 5333 ambulant and hospitalized AF patients were enrolled, in 2003 and 2004. AF was primary or secondary diagnosis, and was confirmed on ECG in the preceding 12 months. Clinical type of AF was reported to be first detected in 978, paroxysmal in 1517, persistent in 1167, and permanent in 1547 patients. Concomitant diseases were present in 90% of all patients, causing risk factors for stroke to be also highly prevalent (86%). As many as 69% of patients were symptomatic at the time of the survey; among asymptomatic patients, 54% were previously experienced symptoms. Oral anticoagulation was prescribed in 67 and 49% of eligible and ineligible patients, respectively. A rhythm control strategy was applied in 67% of currently symptomatic patients and in 44% of patients who never experienced symptoms. Conclusion This survey provides a unique snapshot of current AF management in ESC member countries. Discordance between guidelines and practice was found regarding several issues on stroke prevention and antiarrhythmic therapy.

Background: The rate of spontaneous migration of bile duct stones through the duodenal papilla is not well known. Endoscopic retrograde cholangiography (ERC) has been the standard method to diagnose bile duct stones, but accumulating data show there is a good agreement between ERC and endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS). The aim of the study was to evaluate the incidence and time course of stone migration in patients with bile duct stones by analyzing discrepancies between EUS and ERC as a function of the elapsed time between these two procedures. Stone migration was considered as the absence of stones at time of ERC regardless of the number of stones seen at EUS. Methods: The main criterion for inclusion was the presence of bile duct stone as shown by EUS. Ninety-two consecutive patients were prospectively included in this study. Results: Choledocholithiasis was absent at ERC in 12 patients. In univariate analysis, presence of gallbladder was significantly associated with an increased rate of stone migration (correction for multiple testing would remove this statistical significance). The size of the stone was the only independent factor to predict migration. Conclusion: Migration occurred in about 21% of cases within 1 month. Our study emphasizes the need to analyze carefully the results of comparative imaging studies of bile duct stones. (Gastrointest Endosc 2000;51:175-9.)

Multiple myeloma a plasmatic cell disorder, characterized by bone marrow infiltration of clonal plasmatic cells, monoclonal immunoglobulin production and end stage organ damage. This disease has a wide range of clinical manifestations, including solitary disease or plasmacytoma. It´s the second most common hematologic disease just behind Non Hodgkin Lymphoma. More than 60% of de novo MM patients present vertebral involvement. 80% of MM patients refer pain as the first symptom of the disease, and this often leads to opioid abuse and adverse effects related to pain medication. Plasmocytoma is one of the three neoplastic lesions of the vertebra that can be susceptible of percutaneous vertebroplasty. The preferred method of treatment is a percutaneous vertebroplasty (PV), a radiologic invasive treatment that can treat multiple pathologies, and is now widely used for treatment of osteoporosis vertebral fractures. For the purpose of the study we aimed to assess functional status and reincorporation to daily living, we used the Karnofsky Performance Status; and the Barthel index. For pain improvement we used the Visual Analog Scale. The Likert satisfaction scale (introduced in 1932) measures patient satisfaction in an analog scale. The main objective of the study was to assess the repercussion of the PV in pain score modification and improvement of functional scores in patients with MM at the Pain Clinic of the Instituto Nacional de Cancerología (INCan) in Mexico City. We carried out the study between January 2004 and October 2015. We compared VP treatment to bisphosphonate (BP) and radiotherapy (RT) according to the visual analog scale; and according to Karnofsky and Barthel scales, we determined the reincorporation to daily activities. We included 119 new cases con MM, of this only 64 were included in the study. Of this 54 were female, and 65 were male with a mean age of 59 years (28-87). 88% of patients referred pain as their main symptom, and 70% presented with a vertebral fracture. 26.9% had an ECOG of 3 or more. 96% (114) received RT and 99% (118) BP. 64 (54%) of patients were treated with VP. Of this, 67% referred a VAS of 4 or more (moderate to severe pain). And 92% of the patients achieved a VAS of 4 or less. As for the Karnofsky we assessed an improvement of 50/80 points pre VP to 80/90 post VP. The same result was assessed in the Barthel scale, with an improvement of 50/80 points pre VP to 80/100 post VP. This data provides solid evidence of the importance of multidisciplinary approach, and that VP is a safe and effective treatment, coupled of course with BP and RT. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Extramedullary myeloma (EMM) is defined by the presence of plasma cells outside the bone marrow in a patient with multiple myeloma (MM) (Touzeau & Moreau, 2016). EMM is by itself a rare entity with cases involving central nervous system (CNS) being rarer, it has an estimated incidence of 1-1.8% of all MM cases (Majd et al, 2015). Its presentation in comparison to classical MM has an adverse prognosis including a shorter progression free survival (PFS) (Gozzetti et al, 2015) and overall survival (OS) with a mean life expectancy of 1.5-6 months (Majd et al, 2015). Currently there are not international treatment guidelines for this disease. The aim of this report is to illustrate our experience at a single institution in Mexico, presenting five cases of CNS-EMM treated with proteasome inhibitor (carfilzomib) in combination with thalidomide, dexamethasone plus radiotherapy. The patient's characteristics and the treatment regimen are shown in table 1 and 2. Within three months, following the criteria to the international multiple myeloma working group (IMMWG), all five patients accomplished a positive response (one partial response [PR] four very good partial responses [VGPR]), at sixth months two patients improved their response from previously PR to a VGPR and from VGPR to complete response (CR), one sustained its VGPR and after this period of time two patients had progressive disease (PD) and died due to infectious complications. After the tenth month a third patient also died of infectious complications. By the end of this report two patients still alive, one is being evaluated for autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) and the other one wasn't eligible according to European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) risk score and will continue treatment without ASCT. Previously reported cases in the literature with old chemotherapy regimens shown to have median survival of 1.5 months (Petersen et al 1999), nowadays the recommended therapy is based on triplet induction therapy followed by high-dose melphalan/ASCT, a triplet consolidation therapy and maintenance treatment with lenalidomide (Touzeau & Moreau, 2016); so far there is no evidence of proteasome inhibitors penetrating the blood brain barrier (Nooka et al, 2013) and this might be the reason why the literature strongly recommends the use of lenalidomide as this one does penetrate into the CSF after oral administration (Muscal et al, 2012), we did not use lenalidomide due to the high monetary cost of the treatment but instead we use thalidomide in combination with carfilzomib and dexamethasone with improved OS in three of our five patients (VGPR + CR). Despite the small number of patients presented in this report and the lack of cytogenetics or FISH information, we think this might be a good therapeutic approached in patients with CNS-EMM, especially in those scenarios with not accessible resources or absence of clinical trials. Further studies evaluating the addition of monoclonal antibodies (daratumumab, elotuzumab) need to be done in order to improve the OS and PFS in this group of patients. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

PURPOSE: No underlying cause is found in as many as 30% of patients with acute pancreatitis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of endoscopic ultrasonography in the diagnosis of biliary tract pathology or chronic pancreatitis in these patients. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We evaluated 168 patients who were referred with idiopathic pancreatitis. Diagnoses obtained by endoscopic ultrasonography were prospectively compared with those obtained at surgery in 101 patients, by endoscopic cholangiopancreatography in 49 patients, or by bile crystal analysis and medical follow-up in 18 patients. RESULTS: Endoscopic ultrasonography was abnormal in 135 (80%) patients, 124 of whom had biliary tract disease. When the results of endoscopic ultrasonography were compared with those made after multidisciplinary investigations, endoscopic ultrasonography correctly identified the cause—most commonly biliary tract disease—of the "idiopathic" pancreatitis in 155 (92%) of the 168 patients. CONCLUSIONS: Endoscopic ultrasonography is valuable in determining the cause of acute pancreatitis in patients initially considered to have idiopathic pancreatitis.