Atrial Fibrillation, Cerebral Small Vessel Disease and Gender Medicine: Focus on Biomarkers and Neuroimaging
Francesco Alfano, Martina Berteotti, Francesca Cesari, Anna Maria Gori, Emilia Salvadori, Betti Giusti, Alessia Bertelli, Luca Bicchi, Filippo Fratini, Benedetta Formelli, Eleonora Barucci, Giulia Salti, Enrico Fainardi, Andrea Ginestroni, Stefano Chiti, Anna Poggesi, Rossella Marcucci · 2026
Read Atrial Fibrillation, Cerebral Small Vessel Disease and Gender Medicine: Focus on Biomarkers and Neuroimaging by Francesco Alfano, Martina Berteotti, Francesca Cesari, Anna Maria Gori, Emilia Salvadori, Betti Giusti, Alessia Bertelli, Luca Bicchi, Filippo Fratini, Benedetta Formelli, Eleonora Barucci, Giulia Salti, Enrico Fainardi, Andrea Ginestroni, Stefano Chiti, Anna Poggesi, Rossella Marcucci (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13300882.txt.
Description
Francesco Alfano and a large co-author team examine sex specific links between blood biomarkers and cerebral small vessel disease in atrial fibrillation patients, in a 2026 report from the Strat-AF study. Participants were 170 older patients on anticoagulants, fifty-nine women and one hundred eleven men, who received brain imaging plus panels covering inflammation and tissue remodeling markers.
The predictor patterns split sharply by sex. In women, different markers independently flagged each imaging lesion type. A clotting related protein flagged silent lacunar strokes. Several remodeling enzymes and their inhibitors flagged microbleeds and white matter damage, and an inflammatory signal flagged white matter change. In men, a single inhibitor protein did nearly all the predictive work across lesion types. The authors argue that pairing brain scans with blood markers can refine, separately by sex, which fibrillation patients carry hidden small vessel damage despite anticoagulation.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Francesco Alfano, Martina Berteotti, Francesca Cesari, Anna Maria Gori, Emilia Salvadori, Betti Giusti, Alessia Bertelli, Luca Bicchi, Filippo Fratini, Benedetta Formelli, Eleonora Barucci, Giulia Salti, Enrico Fainardi, Andrea Ginestroni, Stefano Chiti, Anna Poggesi, Rossella Marcucci |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 42 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |