Systemic inflammation biomarker levels in atrial fibrillation patients: A propensity score matching analysis

Objective: to compare the levels of systemic inflammation biomarkers between groups of patients with paroxysmal and persistent atrial fibrillation (AF). Materials and methods. The study included 232 patients with AF who underwent primary pulmonary vein ablation. The mean age was 62 (54; 67) years. Patients were distributed between two groups: with paroxysmal AF and with persistent AF. Results. The analysis of the levels of inflammatory markers did not reveal statistically significant differences between the groups: 0.8 (0.6; 1.1) vs. 0.9 (0.7; 1.1), p=0.077 for the systemic inflammation response index; 361 (276; 509) vs. 373 (294; 551), p=0.505 for the systemic-immune inflammation index; 170 (122; 255) vs. 197 (139; 259), p=0.150 for the aggregate index of systemic inflammation; 1.6 (1.3; 2.2) vs. 1.8 (1.3; 2.3), p=0.428 for the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio; 122 (86; 132) vs. 107 (91; 130), p=0.576, for the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio; and 0.228 (0.177; 0.291) vs. 0.241 (0.200; 0.301); p=0.262 for the monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio. No differences were found after statistical correction for baseline clinical characteristics. According to the ROC analysis, no statistically significant threshold values of the levels of the studied markers were found for each type of AF. Conclusion. We revealed no differences in the levels of systemic inflammation biomarkers between patients with paroxysmal and persistent types of AF. Currently, data on the existence of an association between the levels of systemic inflammation biomarkers and various types of AF are contradictory, and further research in this area is required.