Marta Sitges

Hospital Clínic de Barcelona · Servicio de Cardiología

Despite the challenges associated with periprocedural imaging, transcatheter tricuspid valve interventions have shown important impact on outcomes. A comprehensive understanding of the anatomy of the right heart and surrounding structures is crucial. One way to optimize these interventions is by identifying the optimal fluoroscopic viewing angles a...

Introduction In clinical practice, left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy is a common finding that can be caused by physiologic or pathologic conditions. An etiologic diagnosis is extremely important because it may change the prognosis and management of the patient and his family. Left atrial (LA) dysfunction is common due to diastolic dysfunction but,...

Introduction Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy plays a pivotal role in the management of patient’s survivors of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias (secondary prevention). Risk of recurrence may be related to presence of myocardial scar and its components (including core mass, border zone (BZ) mass, and BZ channels) assessed...

Background Catheter ablation is an effective atrial fibrillation (AF) therapy, but a complex, resource-intensive procedure. Same-day discharge (SDD) reduces utilization of health care resources including personell and hospital beds, and may help to accommodate the increasing demand for AF ablation. However, besides structural adaptations, SDD requi...

Background A partial delineation of targets for ventricular tachycardia (VT) ablation may contribute to a suboptimal success rate. Abnormal electrograms (EGMs) with low-voltage near-field components might be concealed within high-amplitude far-field signals. Our hypothesis posited that acquiring functional mapping after double ventricular extrastim...

Background Left bundle branch pacing (LBBP) is considered an alternative to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). However, LBBP is not suitable for all heart failure patients. Purpose The aim of our study was to identify predictors of unsuccessful LBBP implantation in CRT candidates. Methods A cohort of consecutive patients with indications fo...

Aims Longitudinal dyssynchrony correction and ‘strain’ improvement by comparable cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) techniques is unreported. Our purpose was to compare echocardiographic dyssynchrony correction and ‘strain’ improvement by conduction system pacing (CSP) vs. biventricular pacing (BiVP) as a marker of contractility improvement du...

Aims Same-day discharge (SDD) after atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation is an effective means to spare healthcare resources. However, safety remains a concern, and besides structural adaptations, SDD requires more efficient logistics and coordination. Therefore, in this study, we implement a streamlined, nurse-coordinated SDD programme following a st...

OBJECTIVES Decellularized aortic homografts (DAH) were introduced as a new option for aortic valve replacement for young patients. METHODS A prospective, EU-funded, single-arm, multicentre study in 8 centres evaluating non-cryopreserved DAH for aortic valve replacement. RESULTS A total of 144 patients (99 male) were prospectively enrolled in the...

Atrial secondary tricuspid regurgitation (A-STR) is a distinct phenotype of secondary tricuspid regurgitation with predominant dilation of the right atrium and normal right and left ventricular function. Atrial secondary tricuspid regurgitation occurs most commonly in elderly women with atrial fibrillation and in heart failure with preserved ejecti...

Background and Objectives: Left atrial (LA) remodelling and dilatation predicts atrial fibrillation (AF) recurrences after catheter ablation. However, whether right atrial (RA) remodelling and dilatation predicts AF recurrences after ablation has not been fully evaluated. Materials and Methods: This is an observational study of 85 consecutive patie...

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) represent an important cause of mortality and morbidity in women. It is now recognized that there are sex differences regarding the prevalence and the clinical significance of the traditional cardiovascular (CV) risk factors as well as the pathology underlying a range of CVDs. Unfortunately, women have been under-repre...

Background Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is a prevalent valvular disease. Recent studies demonstrated that significant TR is associated with an increased mortality. However, information regarding the progression rate of TR is lacking, crucial for the correct clinical evaluation of such patients. Due to this fact, current guidelines fail to propose a...

Introduction Changes in left atrial (LA) hemodynamics have been suggested reflective of left ventricular (LV) disease progression. Kinetic energy (KE), viscous energy loss, and vorticity could be promising indices for the assessment of left atrial dynamics by time resolved four-dimensional cardiac magnetic resonance (4D flow CMR). Hypertrophic card...

Aim This study aimed to assess the cardiometabolic sex similarities and differences in adults born small for gestational age. Methods This study was an ambispective cohort study from a birth registry in Barcelona, Spain, including 523 adult participants (20–40 years-old) subdivided as born small for gestational age (SGA, if birth weight <10th cent...

Aims Conducting channels (CCs) detected by late gadolinium enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance (LGE-CMR) are related to ventricular tachycardia (VT). The aim of this work was to study the ability of postablation LGE-CMR to evaluate ablation lesions. Methods This is a prospective study of consecutive patients referred for a scar-related VT ablat...

Aims Recurrence of arrhythmia after catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF) in the form of atypical atrial flutter (AFL) is common among a significant number of patients and often requires redo ablation with limited success rates. Identifying patients at high risk of AFL after AF ablation could aid in patient selection and personalized ablati...

Although the benefits of moderate exercise in patients at high cardiovascular risk are well established, the effects of strenuous exercise remain unknown. We aimed to study the impact of strenuous exercise in a very high cardiovascular risk model. Nephrectomized aged Zucker obese rats were trained at a moderate (MOD) or high (INT) intensity or were...

Background: Echocardiographic speckle-tracking strain imaging (STE) has been a major advance in myocardial function quantification. We aimed to explore current world-wide clinical application of STE. Methods: Access, feasibility, access, and clinical implementation of STE were investigated with a worldwide open-access online survey of the Europe...

Background and objectives: Surgical repair remains the best treatment for severe primary mitral regurgitation. Minimally invasive mitral valve surgery is being increasingly performed, but there is a lack of solid evidence comparing thoracoscopic with conventional surgery. Our objective was to compare outcomes of both approaches for repair of leafl...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public hospital(s). Main funding source(s): Emili Letang - Josep Font research contract fund. Introduction Left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy is a common finding in clinical practice that can be caused by multiple conditions. Left atrial (LA) dysfunction is common due to abnormalities in LV distensi...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Agence National de la Recherche Europian Union-NextGenerationEU. Background Current workflow in cardiac imaging is based on protocols meant to capture a set of predefined images for a certain condition [1]. Although standardized, such...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background T1 parametric maps of the myocardium are a recent development in cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). They can be used to characterize the composition of the heart and identify alterations that can be indicative of a pathology. A common method of T1 estimation involves pixel-w...

Aims: To define a stepwise application of left bundle branch pacing (LBBP) criteria that will simplify implantation and guarantee electrical resynchronization. Left bundle branch pacing has emerged as an alternative to biventricular pacing. However, a systematic stepwise criterion to ensure electrical resynchronization is lacking. Methods and res...

Background: We aimed to describe infective endocarditis cases from noncardiac surgery centers, as current knowledge on infective endocarditis is derived mostly from cardiac surgery hospitals. Methods: An observational retrospective study (2009-2018) was conducted in 9 noncardiac surgery hospitals in Central Catalonia. All adult patients diagnose...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public Institution(s). Main funding source(s): MPL received the Catalan Society of Cardiology Research Grant in 2019 and 2020 (Catalonia, Spain); the Josep Font Grant (2019-2022) from Hospital Clínic Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain). Background Left bundle branch pacing (LBBP) has emerged as an alterna...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public Institution(s). Main funding source(s): Catalan Society of Cardiology; Asociación del Ritmo Cardiaco (Spanish Society of Cardiology). Background Correction of dyssynchrony measured with echo strain, in conduction system pacing (CSP) vs biventricular pacing (BIVP) has not been reported. Obje...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) is the most common congenital cardiac condition among the general population and competitive athletes. BAV could be associated with progressive aortic dilatation, stenosis and/or regurgitation. There are concerns about the possible detrimental effects of...

Purpose The atrial fibrillation (AF) substrate can be characterized by left atrium (LA) fibrosis assessed by delayed-enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR), potentially guiding therapeutic strategies and predicting outcomes in patients with AF undergoing the catheter ablation (CA) procedure. Two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (...

Aims: Echocardiographic assessment of adolescent athletes for arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) can be challenging owing to right ventricular (RV) exercise-related remodelling, particularly RV outflow tract (RVOT) dilation. The aim of this study is to evaluate the role of RV 2-D speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) in comparing healthy adoles...

Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is frequent in patients with leads from rhythm control devices. Percutaneous treatment of TR can be an effective therapy in these patients but needs to be tailored based on valve anatomy and the underlying mechanism of the TR as shown in the case series that we present. (Level of Difficulty: Advanced.).

Imaging techniques play a pivotal role in the diagnosis, follow-up, and management of aortic diseases. Multimodality imaging provides complementary and essential information for this evaluation. Echocardiography, computed tomography, cardiovascular magnetic resonance, and nuclear imaging each have strengths and limitations in the assessment of the...

Aims: Being born small for gestational age (SGA, 10% of all births) is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular mortality in adulthood together with lower exercise tolerance, but mechanistic pathways are unclear. Central obesity is known to worsen cardiovascular outcomes, but it is uncertain how it affects the heart in adults born SGA. We...

Aims Heterogeneous tissue channels (HTCs) detected by late gadolinium enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance (LGE-CMR) are related to ventricular arrhythmias, but there are few published data about their arrhythmogenic characteristics. Methods and results We enrolled 34 consecutive patients with ischaemic and non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy who were...

Background Center-based cardiac rehabilitation programs (CRPs) reduce morbidity and mortality after an ischemic cardiac event; however, they are widely underused. Home-based CRP has emerged as an alternative to improve patient adherence; however, its safety and efficacy remain unclear, especially for older patients and female patients. Objective T...

Objectives The aim of this study was to compare percutaneous catheter ablation vs. minimally invasive surgical ablation, evaluating the impact of repeated ablation on atrial function, and evaluating predictors of atrial fibrillation (AF) recurrence.Background When AF ablation fails, re-ablations are required in up to 40% of patients to treat recurr...

Background Left atrial structural remodeling contributes to the arrhythmogenic substrate of atrial fibrillation (AF), but the role of the right atrium (RA) remains unknown. Our aims were to comprehensively characterize right atrial structural remodeling in AF and identify right atrial parameters predicting recurrences after ablation. Methods and R...

Background Electrical reconnection of pulmonary veins (PV) is considered an important determinant of recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) after PV isolation (PVI). However, it requires an invasive repeat procedure to assess durability of PVI. Against this background, in most centers clinically relevant AF recurrences almost automatically trigger repe...

Background Recent MRI-based studies have raised great concern about frequent cardiac involvement even in mild or asymptomatic COVID-19. However, while signs of myocardial injury were found in large proportions of patients after COVID-19, all studies published to date lack baseline imaging and are therefore unable to discriminate between pre-existin...

Background Being born small-for-gestational age (SGA, 10 percent of all births) is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular mortality (1,2) in adulthood together with lower exercise tolerance (3), but mechanistic pathways are unclear. Central obesity is known to worsen cardiovascular outcomes, but it is uncertain how it affects the heart in...

Resumen Introducción y objetivos La resonancia magnética cardiaca con realce tardío de gadolinio (RMC-RTG) permite la detección no invasiva de la fibrosis auricular izquierda en pacientes con fibrilación auricular (FA). Sin embargo, se desconoce si se puede utilizar la misma metodología en la aurícula derecha (AD). Nuestro objetivo fue definir un...

Background Current echocardiographic criteria cannot accurately differentiate exercise induced left ventricular (LV) hypertrabeculation in athletes from LV non-compaction cardiomyopathy (LVNC). This study aims to evaluate the role of speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) in characterising LV myocardial mechanics in healthy adolescent athletes wit...

Background Conduction system pacing (CSP) has emerged as an alternative to biventricular pacing (BiVP). Randomized studies comparing both therapies are scarce and do not include left bundle branch pacing. Objectives This study aims to compare ventricular resynchronization achieved by CSP vs BiVP in patients with cardiac resynchronization therapy i...

Diagnosis through imaging generally requires the combination of several modalities. Algorithms for data fusion allow merging information from different sources, mostly combining all images in a single step. In contrast, much less attention has been given to the incremental addition of new data descriptors, and the consideration of their costs (whic...

PurposeAthlete’s heart encompasses multiple physiological cardiac adaptations, although less is known at atrial level. How sex may influence the type and extent of atrial adaptations to exercise stimuli is also unknown. Our objective was to compare gender differences of echocardiographic atrial function indices in response to exercise in endurance...

ESC 2022 Cardio-Oncology Guidelines

Moderate exercise has well-founded benefits in cardiovascular health. However, increasing, yet controversial, evidence suggests that extremely trained athletes may not be protected from cardiovascular events as much as moderately trained individuals. In our rodent model, intensive but not moderate training promoted aorta and carotid stiffening and...

Introduction and objectives: Late gadolinium-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance (LGE-CMR) allows noninvasive detection of left atrial fibrosis in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). However, whether the same methodology can be used in the right atrium (RA) remains unknown. Our aim was to define a standardized threshold to characterize RA fibr...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public Institution(s). Main funding source(s): Grant of the Catalan Society of Cardiology, 2019; Research Grant Josep Font 2019, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona His-Purkinje conduction system pacing (HPCSP) has been proposed as an alternative to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT); however, no pred...

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Other. Main funding source(s): Ferrer Internaciona Groupl, S.A Background Center-based cardiac rehabilitation programs (CRP) have shown to reduce morbidity and mortality after an ischemic cardiac event, but their vastly underutilized. Home-based CRP seems to improve patient’s adherence, but there i...

Resumen Introducción y objetivos En pacientes con insuficiencia tricuspídea (IT), la reparación transcatéter de la válvula tricúspide (RTVT) mediante el uso de dispositivos «borde a borde» ha experimentado un creciente uso en todo el mundo. Recientemente se ha puesto a disposición un sistema dedicado de RTVT borde a borde. El presente artículo des...

Purpose Frailty and poor functional capacity in advanced heart failure patients in the waiting list for heart transplantation (HT) are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Pilot studies show short-term benefits through an exercise training program (prehabilitation) in HT candidates. We aim to investigate the efficacy of a prehabilitat...

Ventricular tachycardia (VT) substrate-based ablation has become the gold standard treatment for patients with structural heart disease–related VT. VT is linked to re-entry in relation to myocardial scarring, with areas of conduction block (core scar) and of slow conduction (border zone). Slow conduction areas can be detected in sinus rhythm as lat...

Resumen Introducción y epidemiología Las enfermedades valvulares están sufriendo un aumento global en su prevalencia debido principalmente a su etiología degenerativa y al incremento de la esperanza de vida en la población general. Pronóstico y diagnóstico La insuficiencia mitral (IM) moderada y severa grava el pronóstico de los pacientes indepen...

Introduction and objectives In patients with tricuspid regurgitation (TR), edge-to-edge transcatheter tricuspid valve repair (TTVR) is the strategy with the highest penetration worldwide. A dedicated edge-to-edge TTVR system has recently become available in Europe. The present study describes the initial experience with the system in Spain. Method...