Effect Of Renin-Angiotensin System Intervention On Hypertension Related Atrial Fibrillation

Background: Atrial fibrillation(AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia in clinical practice. Its prevalence increases with age. At present, none of the pharmacotherapy for AF is optimal, many nonpharmacotherapies are still interrogatory and controversy. Hypertension is a common cardiovascular disease. It is an independent risk factor of AF.Renin- angiotensin system(RAS) is one of the most important neuroendocrine system of human body. Patients with hypertension are associated with systemic/local RAS activation. Studies indicated that RAS is related to the initiation and maintenance of AF.Objective: The purse of the study is to explore causes of the high incidence of AF in hypertension patients based on an hypertension animal model— abdominal aorta banded rat. The effects of RAS intervention on inducation of AF as well as on the risk of AF attack in essential hypertension patients are investigated respectively.Methods:(1) Male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into unoperated control group (C group), abdominal aorta banded group (AB group) and abdominal aorta banded plus enalapril group (AB-E group). Rats in C group and AB group were fed routinely. Rats in AB-E group were fed with enalapril besides normal diet(20mg/Kg, put in drink water). All rats were fed for four weeks. Rats were anesthetized after four weeks.I lead of body surface ECG was recorded.A catheter was placed in left common carotid artery for measuring systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Interatrial conduction time(IACT) and atrial response to burst atrial pacing were evaluated in Langendorff-perfused setting. Sections were cut from the tissue of atrium and stained with Masson trichrome.The ratio of the area occupied by interstitial to the total area was measured. (2) Essential hypertension patients were divided into AF group and...