Clinical outcome of patients who develop PAF after CABG surgery

This was a retrospective analysis of patients who had CABG surgery at our h ospital over a 12-month period to determine the intermediate-term prognosis of those who had der eloped PAF after their operation before hospital disc harge. Of 317 patients who were operated by a single surgical group, 116 (3 7%) had AF postoperatively of whom 112 had the paroxysmal form. Of these, 3 6 were treated with class I or III antiarrhythmic 'drugs and rate control d rugs (group 1) and 76 were treated with rate control alone (group 2). Group 3 consisted of 151 randomly selected patients who did not have AF. All pat ients were reevaluated at 6 weeks to determine their rhythm and clinical st atus. Only one patient each in groups 1 and 2 was in AF 6 weeks after disch arge. There was a trend toward a higher mortality and morbidity in group 2 patients. PAF after coronary surgery appears to be a self-limited disease p rocess. In this cohort of patients, the rate of recurrence of AF after disc harge was similar in patients receiving class I or class III antiarrhythmic drugs together with rate control agents compared to those receiving rate c ontrol drugs alone.