The PhD defense will take place

Friday March 10th, 2023
Time: 14.00
Place: Auditorium, Medicinerhuset, Aalborg University Hospital

After the defense there will be held a reception. All are welcome.

About the PhD thesis

New-onset postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) occurs in up to 40% of patients following cardiac surgery. The complication often entails a longer hospital stay and is associated with substantial major adverse cardiovascular events. Early identification of patients with increased risk of POAF may help guide prophylactic interventions in the perioperative period.

The thesis is based on two studies on prediction models for POAF, and one study exploring the risk of ischemic stroke following isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and POAF using data from the Western Danish Heart Registry and the National Danish registers.

The first study revealed that a simple risk score developed for prediction of incident atrial fibrillation without relation to surgery had poorer discriminative capabilities in predicting POAF when applied to a population undergoing cardiac surgery. The second study sought to improve an ECG-based prediction model for POAF by using early postoperative atrial derived electrograms. The atrial derived predictors increased the performance of the prediction model and may be helpful in identifying patients at risk of POAF in cardiac surgery. In the third study we investigated the risk of (and subtypes of) ischemic stroke in a large Danish population of patients who underwent isolated CABG. We found no increased risk of ischemic stroke after POAF and isolated CABG when adjusted for known risk factors.

The cause of POAF is most likely a combination of multiple factors making both prediction and treatment challenging. This thesis emphasizes the need for more research on improving risk models for POAF. Further studies are warranted on how to target and optimize treatment for those patients at high risk of later ischemic stroke.