Low-voltage potentials contribute to postoperative atrial fibrillation development in obese patients

Obesity predisposes to the development of atrial fibrillation (AF); however, the pathophysiology underlying this relation is only partly understood. As low-voltage areas are considered indicators of the arrhythmogenic substrates promoting AF, our study aimed to compare the extensiveness of atrial low-voltage areas between obese and nonobese patients by using high-resolution epicardial mapping in order to identify predilection sites of low-voltage areas. A total of 430 patients (131 (30%) obese and 299 (70%) nonobese) were matched resulting in 212 patients (body mass index [BMI] ≥30 kg/m2: n = 106; BMI