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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Sep 26, 2025; 17(9): 110756
Published online Sep 26, 2025. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v17.i9.110756
Published online Sep 26, 2025. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v17.i9.110756
Systematic review and meta-analysis: Is surgical cardiac denervation effective against postoperative atrial fibrillation?
Danyal Bakht, Maaz Amir, Ahmed Asif, Mohammad Maheer Mubashir, Abdullah Shahid Farooq, Muhammad Zauraiz Malik, Ahmad Hassan, Syed Faqeer Hussain Bokhari, Muhammad Khan Buhadur Ali, Department of Medicine, King Edward Medical University, Lahore 54000, Punjab, Pakistan
Fahad Saleem, Department of Medicine, Punjab Medical College, Faisalabad 54100, Punjab, Pakistan
Kinza Bakht, Muhammad Arham, Allah Dad, Department of Medicine, Sheikh Zayed Medical College, Rahimyar Khan 64200, Punjab, Pakistan
Muhammad Numan Awais, Department of Medicine, Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College, Bogra 5800, Rājshāhi, Bangladesh
Muhammad Rizwan Akram, Department of Medicine, Bronxcare Health System, New York, NY 07008, United States
Author contributions: Bakht D, Amir M, and Saleem F conceptualized and designed the study, supervised the entire research process, and made major contributions to data analysis, interpretation, and manuscript preparation; Asif A, Mubashir MM, and Farooq AS performed the literature search, data extraction, and assisted in drafting the initial manuscript; Malik MZ and Hassan A contributed to statistical analysis, results synthesis, and provided revisions to the manuscript; Bakht K, Arham M, and Bokhari SFH assisted in verifying data accuracy, managing references, and formatting; Awais MN, Buhadur Ali MK and Dad A contributed to proofreading and minor edits; Akram MR provided senior oversight, critically reviewed the manuscript for intellectual content, and approved the final version. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Muhammad Numan Awais, Department of Medicine, Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College, Silimpur, Bogra 5800, Rājshāhi, Bangladesh.
Received: June 16, 2025
Revised: June 26, 2025
Accepted: August 12, 2025
Published online: September 26, 2025
Processing time: 95 Days and 19.1 Hours
Revised: June 26, 2025
Accepted: August 12, 2025
Published online: September 26, 2025
Processing time: 95 Days and 19.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This systematic review and meta-analysis assessed the effectiveness of surgical cardiac denervation in preventing postoperative atrial fibrillation after cardiac surgery. While denervation did not significantly lower the overall incidence of postoperative atrial fibrillation, it was strongly associated with a marked reduction in persistent atrial fibrillation. These findings highlight the potential role of autonomic modulation in targeting sustained arrhythmias, even though its impact on other clinical outcomes such as stroke, mortality, and hospital stay was minimal.