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More than three million people in the U.S. suffer from atrial fibrillation, the most common sustained arrhythmia. Although it is usually associated with structural heart disease, approximately 5% of cases are "lone" or "isolated" (occurring in the absence of clinically evident heart disease). Investigators from Italy sought to study the cause of this condition by performing right atrial and biventricular endomyocardial biopsies on 12 patients with paroxysmal lone atrial fibrillation (LAF) .
Patients included 10 men and 2 women (mean age, 32). All had at least one episode of atrial fibrillation per month and were refractory to treatment with at least two antiarrhythmic agents. Endomyocardial biopsies were performed in the septal region of the…