{"doi":"10.1161/jaha.124.035710","title":"Assessment of Inflammatory Biomarkers and Incident Atrial Fibrillation in Older Adults","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Available evidence supports the importance of inflammation in atrial fibrillation (AF) pathogenesis, yet general anti-inflammatory therapies have failed to show benefit for prevention of the arrhythmia. Better understanding of the specific inflammatory pathways involved is necessary to advance therapeutics. METHODS AND RESULTS: We evaluated 9 circulating markers of inflammation measured by immunoassays and incidence of AF in a population-based older cohort. Biomarkers included measures of general inflammation and the NLR (nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor) family pyrin domain containing 3 inflammasome, TNF-α (tumor necrosis factor α), monocyte activation markers, and sIL-2 (soluble interleukin-2). Among 5726 participants (median age 72 years), 1836 developed AF over median follow-up of 11.5 years. After adjustment for conventional risk factors, 5 biomarkers were positively associated with incident AF: IL-6 (interleukin-6), hazard ratio (HR), 1.14 (95% CI, 1.07-1.21); hs-CRP (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein), HR, 1.05 (95% CI, 1.01-1.09); white blood cell count, HR, 1.18 (95% CI, 1.04-1.35); sTNFR1 (soluble TNF receptor 1), HR, 1.21 (95% CI, 1.05-1.39); and sIL-2Rα (sIL-2 receptor α), HR, 1.16 (95% CI, 1.05-1.29) (all per doubling of biomarker). sCD14, sCD163, IL-18, and IL-1 receptor antagonist showed no association with AF. Upon concurrent adjustment for all biomarkers, only IL-6 remained significantly associated with the arrhythmia, HR, 1.17 (95% CI, 1.07-1.26). CONCLUSIONS: Among older adults, IL-6, hs-CRP, white blood cell count, sTNFR1, and sIL-2Rα were positively associated with incident AF, but only IL-6 retained significance on concurrent adjustment. These findings newly document associations for sTNFR1 and sIL-2Rα and lend support to a preeminent role for IL-6 in development of this arrhythmia. The efficacy of IL-6 blockade for AF prevention awaits completion of appropriate clinical trials.","journal":"Journal of the American Heart Association","year":2024,"id":422069,"datarank":0.515098080672772,"base_score":3.4339872044851463,"endowment":3.4339872044851463,"self_citation_contribution":0.515098080672772,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.515098080672772,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":30,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9511,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":24969,"name":"Susan R. Heckbert","orcid":"0000-0002-7100-512X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":266842,"name":"Gregory M. Marcus","orcid":"0000-0001-5197-7696","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":235994,"name":"Sanjiv J. Shah","orcid":"0000-0002-5655-8201","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":24890,"name":"Nona Sotoodehnia","orcid":"0000-0002-2705-6237","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":57359,"name":"Jeremy Walston","orcid":"0000-0002-6965-2723","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":25010,"name":"Alex P. Reiner","orcid":"0000-0002-1427-4470","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":25028,"name":"Russell P. Tracy","orcid":"0000-0002-0080-2420","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":17625,"name":"Bruce M. Psaty","orcid":"0000-0002-7278-2190","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":246786,"name":"Jorge R. Kizer","orcid":"0000-0001-9936-7803","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":413542,"name":"Sanyog G. Shitole","orcid":"0000-0002-3831-5118","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":53,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:57:46.393290Z","pmid":"39644101","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}