Author`s Reply

To the Editor,

We would like to thank you for your interest in our study and the valuable comments regarding the same. In our study published entitled “Echocardiographic predictors of atrial fibrillation after mitral valve replacement.” in Anatol J Cardiol 2017;17:334-6 (1). all selected patients with mitral valve disease who were scheduled for mitral valve replacement had BMI that ranged from 27 to 30 kg/m² (overweight). In addition, multivariable logistic regression analysis of data, including preoperative clinical data (age, sex, BMI, DM, HTN, dyslipidemia, Beta-blockers, statins, ACE inhibitors, heart rate, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure), revealed that the preoperative clinical data associated with POAF were sex (p=0.059), Beta-blockers (p=0.006), heart rate (p=0.006), and diastolic blood pressure (p=0.006). The area under the curve was 0.9659. Gottdiener et al. (2) reported that obese patients (BMI, >30 kg/m²) had a greater LA size (44.2±5.7 mm) than overweight (41.6±5.9 mm) or normal weight (38.9±6.2 mm) patients. They defined left atrial enlargement as an LA dimension of ≥43 mm. BMI was a parameter of the STS score, which was statistically non-significant between the two groups.