Slow Recovery of the Right and Left Ventricular Deformation after Conversion from Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a possible complication of sport in middle-aged athletes. When sinus rhythm has been restored, at what time is deformation restored too? This question has never been answered. We studied an one 47-year old cyclist and runner with acute lone atrial fibrillation. A day before, he trained hard intervals and felt at the next day an irregular rhythm, training was not possible. He told this would occure 2 times a year , but after the light training the irregular puls will disappear. At the chest-pain unit we performed echocardiography inclusive strain measurements of the right and left ventricle during atrial fibrillation and immediately after the recovery of the sinus rhythm. He recovered to sinus rhythm during the exercise test. Global strain was at the moment of atrial fibrillation – 11.8%, direct after the recovery of the sinus rhythm -17,2%, and -20.5% at the next day, even though the normalized diastolic function directly after conversion from AF. It seems to be that the heterogenity of the deformation need time to recovery after the conversion to the sinus rhythm, even though the diastolic function seems to be normalized. The further endurance training should be continued only after normalization of deformation values.