Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Heart Failure and Transplantation
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1433790
This article is part of the Research Topic Epicardial Adipose Tissue and Heart Failure: Mechanism, Diagnosis and Therapy View all articles

Obese patients exhibit a greater enhancement in mental health-related quality of life compared to non-obese patients following thoracoscopic ablation of atrial fibrillation

Provisionally accepted
Eva Rosanne Meulendijks Eva Rosanne Meulendijks 1*Manouck Roelofs Manouck Roelofs 1Tim de Vries Tim de Vries 1Robin Wesselink Robin Wesselink 1Rushd Fadhil Mustafa Al-Shama Rushd Fadhil Mustafa Al-Shama 1Willem Van Boven Willem Van Boven 1Antoine Driessen Antoine Driessen 1Wouter Berger Wouter Berger 2Jonas de Jong Jonas de Jong 2Joris De Groot Joris De Groot 1
  • 1 Heart Center, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • 2 Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis (OLVG), Amsterdam, Netherlands

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Obesity is an important risk factor for atrial fibrillation (AF) development and progression. Furthermore, obesity reduces health-related quality of life (HRQoL), an essential indicator for treatment efficacy of AF ablation. Nevertheless, the extent to which obesity influences changes in HRQoL and the recurrence of AF following ablation, especially thoracoscopic AF ablation, remains largely unexplored. Aims: We assessed in obese versus non-obese patients undergoing thoracoscopic AF ablation:1) HRQoL upon ablation, 2) AF recurrence incidence, 3) the association between recurrence incidence and HRQoL. Methods&results: 408 prospectively enrolled patients were included for analysis. Cardiac Heart rhythm was systematically monitored during follow-up. AF recurrence was defined as any atrial tachyarrhythmia episode>30s. HRQoL and recurrence incidence were assessed for normal weight (BMI≤24.9kg/m2 ), overweight (25.0–29.9kg/m2 ) and obese (≥30.0kg/m2 ) patients. HRQoL was assessed at baseline and 1-year follow-up. Obese patients scored lower in pre-operative HRQoL across 6/8 subscales versus non-obese patients (p

    Keywords: Obesity, Atrial fibillation, Quality of Life, ablation, Thoracoscopic, SF36 health survey

    Received: 16 May 2024; Accepted: 15 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Meulendijks, Roelofs, de Vries, Wesselink, Al-Shama, Van Boven, Driessen, Berger, de Jong and De Groot. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Eva Rosanne Meulendijks, Heart Center, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.