Trends in atrial flutter and atrial tachycardia research

- Atrial flutter (Aflut) and atrial tachycardia (AT) are common arrhythmias.
- Trends in quantitative Aflut and AT publishing were assessed.
- There are 2× as many quantitative Aflut versus AT published studies.
- Peaks in quantitative studies occurred about the year 2004.
- Aflut and AT studies may be becoming more clinical in recent years.

BackgroundAtrial flutter and atrial tachycardia are frequently observed arrhythmias that can be difficult to treat effectively with catheter ablation. It would be of interest to know the research directions for these arrhythmias in order to plan future efficacious studies.MethodThe MEDLINE search tool was used to determine the number of articles per year published in the biomedical literature on atrial flutter and atrial tachycardia. It was also used to determine how many articles were published concerning both of these arrhythmias in association with related keywords. The search was done for the years 1960-2013 inclusive. An in-house developed software program was utilized to structure the data into number of publications in each year. The results were graphed, and linear regression analysis was used to show trends.ResultsOverall, there were 6926 publications in the biomedical literature containing the keyword 'atrial flutter'. The number of atrial flutter publications increased by an average of 3.58 per year from 1960 to 2013. However, there was a dip in the number of such publications during the years 1970−1990. By comparison, there were 2526 publications in the biomedical literature containing the keyword 'atrial tachycardia'. The number of atrial tachycardia publications increased by an average of 1.95 per year from 1960 to 2013. Most keywords associated with both atrial flutter and atrial tachycardia trended upward in number of publications per year. However many keywords peaked around the year 2004.ConclusionsThere have been marked changes in the types and numbers of research foci for both atrial flutter and atrial tachycardia, based on studies published in the biomedical literature.