Dear Readers

Welcome to the April issue of JAFIB. Hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable spring break. Weather in Kansas City has been wonderful with a full bloom of spring on the way.

This issue of the journal brings you several important articles with tremendous scientific merit.In an original article ,Ganga et al attempted to assess the relation between chronic anemia and new onset AF in elderly population in a community setting.In this large study of more than 2300 patients, prevalence of chronic anemia seems to be quite prevalent. However,no significant difference in AF incidence was noticed. A case report by Bittinger et al describes non-interventional management of symptomatic pulmonary vein occlusion after radiofrequency ablation of AF ablation. An epidemiological paper by Peterelli et al described the demographic characteristics and medication patterns in AF patients from a large primary care database in southwest Ontario.

At a more mechanistic level, three articles do a fine job of throwing more light on the intricacies of AF initiation, maintenance and termination. Grandi et al described the altered excitation-contraction coupling in human chronic AF. This paves way for the identification of potential new targets for AF therapy. The UCSD group presented a current review on how AF regularization indices can predict intraprocedural AF termination and outcomes. Akar et al discussed the recent evidence linking epicardial fat and AF.

Engelbertz et al reviewed the issues surrounding AF and oral anticoagulation in patients with chronic kidney disease. Adlan et al summarized current literature in stroke prophylaxis for AF patients. Altman et al reviewed the results of various studies involving AF therapy with cryo balloon technology. Cheng et al presented a nice summary of methods, efficacy and safety of Catheter ablation. Khaykin et al reviewed the outcomes of RF ablation in patients with lone AF including some data from their own institution.

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is an important therapy for heart failure. Often times, AF complicates and compromises the effectiveness of CRT devices. Two fantastic articles this issue cover the entire spectrum of issues related to CHF, AF and CRT.

Well that is all for this issue. We will see you all in Boston at Heart Rhythm.

Best wishes

Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy MD, FACC, FHRS Associate Editor JAFIB