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Introduction: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) has been associated with incident atrial fibrillation (AF) and its complications, but data from Asian cohorts are limited., Aim: To explore the relationship of AF recurrence after catheter ablation (CA) with eGFR as a continuous variable, and with different renal function categories (normal: estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] ≥90mL/min/1.73 m 2 ; mild CKD: eGFR 60-89mL/min/1.73 m 2 ; moderate CKD: eGFR 45-59mL/min/1.73 m 2 ; severe CKD: <45mL/min/1.73 m 2 ), using data from the Guangzhou Atrial Fibrillation Ablation Registry., Methods: We studied consecutive symptomatic adult patients with non-valvular AF, refractory to at least one antiarrhythmic drug and eligible for CA, in Guangdong General Hospital between June 2011 and August 2015., Results: Data were available from 1407 consecutive patients (mean age 57.3±11.5 years; 68% men) with non-valvular AF undergoing radiofrequency or cryoballoon ablation. During a mean follow-up of 20.7±8.8 months, 18.6% of patients with paroxysmal AF and 50.5% with non-paroxysmal AF had AF recurrence. On multivariable analysis, eGFR (hazard ratio [HR] 0.97, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.96-0.97) was an independent risk factor for AF recurrence, with a good predictive value (area under the curve 0.74, 95% CI 0.72-0.77; P<0.01). In the normal renal function, and mild, moderate and severe CKD categories, AF recurrence rates were 11.5%, 29.3%, 72.0% and 93.3%, respectively. Compared with normal renal function, there were stepwise increased risks of AF recurrence with mild CKD (HR 3.30, 95% CI 2.55-4.26; P<0.01), moderate CKD (HR 9.43, 95% CI 6.76-13.16; P<0.01) and severe CKD (HR 12.35, 95% CI 6.93-21.99; P<0.01)., Conclusions: In a large cohort of Asian patients with AF, renal dysfunction increased the risk of AF recurrence after CA. AF recurrence gradually increased with worsening kidney function in this cohort., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Background: Obesity or overweight is related to worse outcomes in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) following catheter ablation (CA). The role of being underweight in relation to recurrent arrhythmias post AF ablation is less certain. We conducted a retrospective study to investigate the association of body mass index (BMI) with arrhythmia outcomes in AF patients undergoing CA., Methods: In a cohort of 1410 AF patients (mean age 57.2 ± 11.6 years; 68% male) undergoing single CA, the association between BMI and AF ablation outcome was analyzed using BMI as a continuous variable and by four BMI categories (<18.5 kg/m 2 , 18.5-24 kg/m 2 , 25-29 kg/m 2 , and ≥ 30 kg/m 2 )., Result: We observed a positive association between a cut off value of BMI and risk of AF recurrence post AF ablation. BMI ≥26.36 kg/m 2 was related to more AF recurrence (c-statistic 0.55, 95%CI 0.51-0.58; P < 0.01) with 50% increased risk of AF recurrence (HR 1.50, 95% CI 1.22-1.86; P < 0.01). Recurrence rates in the four BMI categories were 33.3%, 23.2%, 27.2 and 41.8%, respectively (P < 0.01). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that BMI categories of <18.5 kg/m 2 and ≥ 30 kg/m 2 were all associated with more AF recurrence (P = 0.01). Both underweight (HR 1.85, 95%CI 1.12-3.08; P = 0.02) and obesity (HR 1.78, 95%CI 1.17-2.72; P = 0.01) significantly increased the risk of AF recurrence in a Cox proportional hazard model., Conclusion: BMI had good predictive value for AF ablation outcomes with a cut off value of ≥26.36 kg/m 2 . Apart from being obese/overweight, being underweight might also be a risk factor for AF recurrence post ablation., (Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The history of eponyms for epilepsy in the lands of the Eastern globe present the portrait of the attitudes of both the laymen and skilled people towards the disease and patient, as well as to the Nature itself. As opposed to the West which during the Middle ages changed its concepts of epilepsy as the organic brain disease for the sublime 'alchemic' position, the people of the East were more prone to consider from the beginning of their civilization till the XIX century that epilepsy is the consequence of the evanescent spiritual and extracorporal forces which by themselves were out of their reach. As compared to the western civilization, the historical resources are, often as a consequence of a linguistic barriers, more scarce-as consequently is the number of eponyms, but are nevertheless picturesque. The medical science from Babylonian period presumed that epileptic manifestations are the consequence of the demonic or ill spiritual actions. There existed an attitude that at the beginning of an epileptic attack the patient was possessed by a demon (the Akkadic, i.e., Babylonian verb "sibtu" denoting epilepsy, had the meaning "to seize" or "to be obsessed"); at the end of the clonic phase the demon departed from the body. Different demons were responsible for different forms of epilepsy such as nocturnal and children epilepsy, absence epilepsy and pure convulsions, simple and complex automatisms, and gelastic epilepsy. Thus, the doctors from the period of Babylon aside from making primordial classification of epilepsies, knew about their clinical picture (prodromal symptoms and aura, Jackson's epilepsy. Todd's paralysis), postictal phenomena and intericatl emotional instability; provocative factors were also known (sleep deprivation, emotions, as well as alcohol, albeit in a negative sense-as a cure for epilepsy). There is no doubt than in the period of Babylon the clinical picture of serial fits and its progress to status epilepticus were clearly recognized and considered as life threatening events. Persian history of epilepsy, except from the 6th century Zoroastrian "Avesta" document, lacks the written or spoken medical heritage untill the 7th century A.D. and the Arabic conquest of the entire Moslem world. On the other hand, Islamic medicine should be freed from the simple prejudice that the Moslem authors were only the translators of Greek medicine; contrary to such a view, their work contains a high degree of individuality. Although Mohammed introduced a lot of novelty into medicine, Khoran and the Sayings do not explicitly refer to epilepsy. Of importance is to notice that Moslem medicine did not have demons in the "repertoire" of direct causes of epilepsy. The causes and the cures of epilepsy were more magic-mystical and occult in nature, which is reminiscent of the European, as well as Serbian Middle age attitudes. Avicenna recognized difference between children and adult epilepsy. He considered insomnia and afternoon siesta as well as intensive sounds and light to be a provocative factors, whereby we see that at least empirically he knew of sleep (deprivation), startle and reflex epilepsy. The XIII century invasion of Mongols brought about the recession in Moslem Medicine; it recovered only in the XVIII century under the strong influence of European medicine handed over to us through Jewish doctors of various nationalities. The story of the China history of epilepsy has its debut approximately in the 8th century B. C. Medical texts from this period name epilepsy "Dian" and "Xian" which meant "the falling sickness" and "convulsions", respectively. Chinese medical terminology often interchangeably used the words "mania", "madness" and "psychosis" for "epilepsy" which, aside from a prominent language barrier, brings additional confusion. Although Chinese documents gave the first description of the grand mal epileptic attack already in the 8th century B. C. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)