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The combination of a surgical box lesion and transcatheter ablation in a hybrid approach provided excellent durable clinical outcomes in patients with LSP-AF.

The use of transcatheter aortic valve replacement in patients with an intermediate- to high-risk profile was associated with a significantly higher incidence of perioperative complications and decreased survival at short- and mid-term when compared with conventional surgery and sutureless valve implantation.

This preliminary study suggests that the use of TAVR in patients with an intermediate- to high-risk profile is associated with a higher rate of perioperative complications and decreased survival at the 24-month follow-up compared with the use of conventional surgery or sutureless valves.

Complete posterior LA and PV isolation with the box lesion in a staged hybrid approach is associated with incremental benefits in terms of sinus rhythm maintenance in patients with long-standing persistent AF.

Objective: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in an increase in hospital resource utilization and the need to defer nonurgent cardiac surgery procedures. The present study aims to report the regional variations of North American adult cardiac surgical case volume and case mix through the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: A survey was sent to recruit participating adult cardiac surgery centers in North America. Data in regard to changes in institutional and regional cardiac surgical case volume and mix were analyzed.Results: Our study comprises 67 adult cardiac surgery institutions with diverse geographic distribution across North America, representing annualized case volumes of 60,452 in 2019. Nonurgent surgery was stopped during the month of March 2020 in the majority of centers (96%), resulting in a decline to 45% of baseline with significant regional variation. Hospitals with a high burden of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 demonstrated similar trends of decline in total volume as centers in low burden areas. As a proportion of total surgical volume, there was a relative increase of coronary artery bypass grafting surgery (high þ7.2% vs low þ4.2%, P ¼ .550), extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (high þ2.5% vs low 0.4%, P ¼ .328), and heart transplantation (high þ2.7% vs low 0.4%, P ¼ .090), and decline in valvular cases (high -7.6% vs low -2.6%, P ¼ .195). Conclusions:The present study demonstrates the impact of COVID-19 on North American cardiac surgery institutions as well as helps associate region and COVID-19 burden with the impact on cardiac surgery volumes and case mix. (J

Total myocardial revascularization with composite arterial grafts provided superior clinical results and improved patient outcome, even in the short term to midterm. Arterial conduit-related benefits were clearly evident with respect to recurrence of angina and a higher graft patency rate.