Scientific Italy

We enrolled 160 consecutive recipients of a dual-chamber pacemaker endowed with the ApneaScan algorithm (Boston Scientific). If the pacemaker-measured Respiratory Disturbance Index was??30 episodes per hour for at least one night during the first week after implantation, SA was defined as severe. Patients were considered to have experienced AF episodes if the device detected a cumulative AF burden??6?h in a day. Sixteen patients in AF at the time of implantation were excluded from our analysis.