Ibuprofen May Prevent Atrial Fibrillation after Surgery

New research indicates that atrial fibrillation following open-heart surgery may be due to inflammation, and may be prevented by applying an anti-inflammatory drug such as ibuprofen topically to the heart during surgery.

Atrial fibrillation affects around 40% of all U.S. patients who undergo coronary artery bypass graft procedures or heart valve surgery, according to Adam E. Saltman, M.D., assistant professor of surgery and physiology, State University of New York at Stony Brook (USA). Dr. Saltman suspected that inflammation played a role in the development of postoperative atrial fibrillation because the timing of arrhythmia coincides with the peak inflammatory period following surgery. He tested his hypothesis in an animal model of the cardiac inflammatory reaction. In his study, untreated animals had significantly faster electric conduction velocities in heart muscles than animals that received topical ibuprofen, which had no sustained arrhythmias.

Before proceeding to clinical trials, Dr. Saltman will be experimenting with isolated cardiac tissue to determine whether inflammation alters the electrical properties of the heart or deranges cell-to-cell connections in heart muscle. He will also be exploring the effects of aging on heart muscle. Dr. Saltman presented his study at the annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons in Chicago (Il, USA). "Ibuprofen is a drug we're comfortable with in the medical world. Therefore, it should be safe to apply it to the surface of the heart, provided that surface is sterile,” he concluded.