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Hi, everyone.

This is John Mandrola from the Heart.org Medscape cardiology, and this is this week in cardiology for

January 30th, 2026. This week, I'll talk about some listener feedback that was quite good, huge news in the

rapidly expanding world of PFA, AF ablation, obesity numbers, a beautiful trial studying an AI-enhanced diagnostic tool in the office.

First is that I want to say thanks to the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society

for inviting me to speak at the Advanced Cardiovascular Intervention Meeting here in London.

I'm actually recording in my hotel room before I get on the plane to Chicago.

My assignment at the meeting was to

lecture on the three worst interventional trials that have affected practice nonetheless.

I also had a talk about how wasteful a.F. Ablation can be. These were easy talks for me to put together.

I love this meeting, and I have to say that British meetings are a lot

less stuffy than U.S. ones. It was great fun, and thanks to Dr. David, Hildick-Smith, and others for

inviting me. It was wonderful. Okay, first some listener feedback. This is on the matter of

T.E. versus no T.E. before ablation. Professor Yaakim Erlich writes to me about ICE versus T.E.

Coverage two weeks ago. His group in We Spot in Germany published a research letter in the

Heart Rhythm Journal. I'll link to it. And they were chronicling the use of a risk score

designed to avoid T.Eoballoon AF ablation.

The gist of their series of 1400 ablations was that both TEE and no TEE if negative risk score

ended up with a 99 plus percent chance of having no post-procedural strokes.

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