# Topics and Trends in Most Cited Atrial Fibrillation Management and Outcomes Papers, Class of 2026

*Canonical URL: https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/atrial-fibrillation-management-and-outcomes/2026*

## What topics and trends defined most-cited Atrial Fibrillation Management and Outcomes research in the Class of 2026?

Pulsed field ablation, catheter ablation, pulmonary vein isolation, and CHA2DS2-VASc scoring anchor the Class of 2026 atrial fibrillation cohort. Incident atrial fibrillation, surgical ablation, and hybrid ablation rose sharply from Class of 2025, while paroxysmal AF, AF recurrence, and repeat-ablation themes receded among top-cited work.

## At a glance

| Fact | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Field | Atrial Fibrillation Management and Outcomes |
| Cohort label | Class of 2026 (2024 publications) |
| Papers analyzed | 10,304 |
| Papers ranked | 20 |
| Top topics in ranked papers | Pulsed field ablation, catheter ablation, pulmonary vein isolation, radiofrequency ablation, CHA2DS2-VASc score |
| Publication window | Jan 1, 2024 – Dec 31, 2024 |
| Eligibility | Research articles; reviews excluded |
| Citation window | 18 months post-publication |
| 18m citation range | 58–1,901 |
| Data source | OpenAlex · Retrieved Jul 2026 |
| License | CC BY 4.0 |

## Rankings

| Rank | Title | Authors | Corresponding authors | Affiliation | Journal | 18m citations | DOI |
| ---: | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---: | --- |
| 1 | 2024 ESC Guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation developed in collaboration with the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) | Isabelle C Van Gelder, Michiel Rienstra, Karina V Bunting, Ruben Casado-Arroyo, Valeria Caso, Harry J G M Crijns, Tom J R De Potter, Jeremy Dwight, Luigina Guasti, Thorsten Hanke, Tiny Jaarsma, Maddalena Lettino, Maja-Lisa Løchen, R Thomas Lumbers, Bart Maesen, Inge Mølgaard, Giuseppe M C Rosano, Prashanthan Sanders, Renate B Schnabel, Piotr Suwalski, Emma Svennberg, Juan Tamargo, Otilia Tica, Vassil Traykov, Stylianos Tzeis, Dipak Kotecha, ESC Scientific Document Group | Isabelle C Van Gelder | (Netherlands)., Netherlands | European Heart Journal | 1,901 | 10.1093/eurheartj/ehae176 |
| 2 | 2024 European Heart Rhythm Association/Heart Rhythm Society/Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society/Latin American Heart Rhythm Society expert consensus statement on catheter and surgical ablation of atrial fibrillation | Stylianos Tzeis, Edward P Gerstenfeld, Jonathan Kalman, Eduardo B Saad, Alireza Sepehri Shamloo, Jason G Andrade, Chirag R Barbhaiya, Tina Baykaner, Serge Boveda, Hugh Calkins, Ngai-Yin Chan, Minglong Chen, Shih-Ann Chen, Nikolaos Dagres, Ralph J Damiano, Tom De Potter, Isabel Deisenhofer, Nicolas Derval, Luigi Di Biase, Mattias Duytschaever, Katia Dyrda, Gerhard Hindricks, Meleze Hocini, Young-Hoon Kim, Mark la Meir, Jose Luis Merino, Gregory F Michaud, Andrea Natale, Isabelle Nault, Santiago Nava, Takashi Nitta, Mark O'Neill, Hui-Nam Pak, Jonathan P Piccini, Helmut Pürerfellner, Tobias Reichlin, Luis Carlos Saenz, Prashanthan Sanders, Richard Schilling, Boris Schmidt, Gregory E Supple, Kevin L Thomas, Claudio Tondo, Atul Verma, Elaine Y Wan, Daniel Steven, Michael-Joseph Agbayani, T Jared Bunch, Aman Chugh, Juan Carlos Díaz, James V Freeman, Carina Abigail Hardy, Hein Heidbuchel, Sofian Johar, Dominik Linz, Bart Maesen, Peter A Noseworthy, Seil Oh, Andreu Porta-Sanchez, Tatjana Potpara, Gerardo Rodriguez-Diez, Frederic Sacher, Piotr Suwalski, Serge A Trines | Stylianos Tzeis | Mitera Hospital, Greece | EP Europace | 331 | 10.1093/europace/euae043 |
| 3 | Safety of pulsed field ablation in more than 17,000 patients with atrial fibrillation in the MANIFEST-17K study | Emmanuel Ekanem, Petr Neuzil, Tobias Reichlin, Joseph Kautzner, Pepijn van der Voort, Pierre Jais, Gian-Battista Chierchia, Alan Bulava, Yuri Blaauw, Tomas Skala, Martin Fiala, Mattias Duytschaever, Gabor Szeplaki, Boris Schmidt, Grégoire Massoullie, Kars Neven, Olivier Thomas, Johan Vijgen, Estelle Gandjbakhch, Daniel Scherr, Arne Johannessen, David Keane, Serge Boveda, Philippe Maury, Ignacio García-Bolao, Ante Anic, Peter Steen Hansen, Franck Raczka, Antoine Lepillier, Yves Guyomar, Dhiraj Gupta, Jurren Van Opstal, Pascal Defaye, Christian Sticherling, Philipp Sommer, Pavel Kucera, Joaquin Osca, Fariborz Tabrizi, Antoine Roux, Michael Gramlich, Stefano Bianchi, Pedro Adragão, Francesco Solimene, Claudio Tondo, Antonio Dello Russo, Jürgen Schreieck, Armin Luik, Obaida Rana, Gerrit Frommeyer, Frédéric Anselme, Ingo Kreis, Raphael Rosso, Andreas Metzner, Laszlo Geller, Samuel H Baldinger, Angel Ferrero, Stephan Willems, Andreas Goette, Greg Mellor, Shibu Mathew, Lukasz Szumowski, Roland Tilz, Saverio Iacopino, Peter Karl Jacobsen, Andrikopoulos George, Pavel Osmancik, Stefan Spitzer, Richard Balasubramaniam, Abdul Shokor Parwani, Thomas Deneke, Andrzej Glowniak, Antonio Rossillo, Helmut Pürerfellner, David Duncker, Peter Reil, Thomas Arentz, Daniel Steven, Juan José Olalla, Jonas S S G de Jong, Reza Wakili, Selim Abbey, Gottschling Timo, Antonio Asso, Tom Wong, Bertrand Pierre, Niels Christian Ewertsen, Leonard Bergau, Cristina Lozano-Granero, Maximo Rivero, Alexander Breitenstein, Jaakko Inkovaara, Samir Fareh, Decebal Gabriel Latcu, Dominik Linz, Patrick Müller, Javier Ramos-Maqueda, Thomas Beiert, Sakis Themistoclakis, Dirk Grosse Meininghaus, Günter Stix, Stylianos Tzeis, Jakub Baran, Henrik Almroth, Daniel Rodriguez Munoz, João de Sousa, Michalis Efremidis, Pawel Balsam, Jan Petru, Thomas Küffer, Petr Peichl, Lukas Dekker, Domenico G Della Rocca, Ondrej Moravec, Moritoshi Funasako, Sebastien Knecht, Gael Jauvert, Julian Chun, Romain Eschalier, Anna Füting, Alexandre Zhao, Pieter Koopman, Mikael Laredo, Martin Manninger, Jim Hansen, Daniel O'Hare, Anne Rollin, Zrinka Jurisic, Thomas Fink, Corentin Chaumont, Andreas Rillig, Melanie Gunawerdene, Claire Martin, Bettina Kirstein, Karin Nentwich, Heiko Lehrmann, Arian Sultan, Jan Bohnen, Mohit K Turagam, Vivek Y Reddy | Emmanuel Ekanem | Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States | Nature Medicine | 279 | 10.1038/s41591-024-03114-3 |
| 4 | Atrial fibrillation: epidemiology, screening and digital health | Dominik Linz, Monika Gawalko, Konstanze Betz, Jeroen M Hendriks, Gregory Y H Lip, Nicklas Vinter, Yutao Guo, Søren Johnsen | Dominik Linz | Maastricht University Medical Centre and Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht, Netherlands | The Lancet Regional Health - Europe | 189 | 10.1016/j.lanepe.2023.100786 |
| 5 | Atrial cardiomyopathy revisited—evolution of a concept: a clinical consensus statement of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) of the ESC, the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS), the Asian Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS), and the Latin American Heart Rhythm Society (LAHRS) | Andreas Goette, Domenico Corradi, Dobromir Dobrev, Luis Aguinaga, Jose-Angel Cabrera, Sumeet S Chugh, Joris R de Groot, Laurie Soulat-Dufour, Guilherme Fenelon, Stephane N Hatem, Jose Jalife, Yenn-Jiang Lin, Gregory Y H Lip, Gregory M Marcus, Katherine T Murray, Hui-Nam Pak, Ulrich Schotten, Naohiko Takahashi, Takanori Yamaguchi, William A Zoghbi, Stanley Nattel, Lluis Mont, Joseph G Akar, Nazem Akoum, Till Althoff, Juan Carlos Diaz, Jean-Baptiste Guichard, Amir Jadidi, Jonathan Kalman, Han Lim, Ricardo Alkmim Teixeira | Andreas Goette, Luis Aguinaga, Takanori Yamaguchi, Stanley Nattel | St. Vincenz-Hospital Paderborn, Germany | EP Europace | 165 | 10.1093/europace/euae204 |
| 6 | Left Atrial Appendage Closure after Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation | Oussama M Wazni, Walid I Saliba, Devi G Nair, Eloi Marijon, Boris Schmidt, Troy Hounshell, Henning Ebelt, Carsten Skurk, Saumil Oza, Chinmay Patel, Arvindh Kanagasundram, Ashish Sadhu, Sri Sundaram, Jose Osorio, George Mark, Madhukar Gupta, David B DeLurgio, Jeffrey Olson, Jens Erik Nielsen-Kudsk, Lucas V A Boersma, Jeff S Healey, Karen P Phillips, Federico M Asch, Katherine Wolski, Kristine Roy, Thomas Christen, Brad S Sutton, Kenneth M Stein, Vivek Y Reddy, OPTION Trial Investigators | Oussama M Wazni | Cleveland Clinic, United States | New England Journal of Medicine | 149 | 10.1056/nejmoa2408308 |
| 7 | Asundexian versus Apixaban in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation | Jonathan P Piccini, Manesh R Patel, Jan Steffel, Keith Ferdinand, Isabelle C Van Gelder, Andrea M Russo, Chang-Sheng Ma, Shaun G Goodman, Jonas Oldgren, Christopher Hammett, Renato D Lopes, Masaharu Akao, Raffaele De Caterina, Paulus Kirchhof, Diana A Gorog, Martin Hemels, Michiel Rienstra, W Schuyler Jones, Josephine Harrington, Gregory Y H Lip, Stephen J Ellis, Frank W Rockhold, Christoph Neumann, John H Alexander, Thomas Viethen, James Hung, Rosa Coppolecchia, Hardi Mundl, Valeria Caso, OCEANIC-AF Steering Committee and Investigators | Jonathan P Piccini | Duke Clinical Research Institute, United States | New England Journal of Medicine | 118 | 10.1056/nejmoa2407105 |
| 8 | Interpretable machine learning model for new-onset atrial fibrillation prediction in critically ill patients: a multi-center study | Chengjian Guan, Angwei Gong, Yan Zhao, Chen Yin, Lu Geng, Linli Liu, Xiuchun Yang, Jingchao Lu, Bing Xiao | Jingchao Lu, Bing Xiao | The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, China | Critical Care | 101 | 10.1186/s13054-024-05138-0 |
| 9 | Pulsed Field Ablation to Treat Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation: Safety and Effectiveness in the AdmIRE Pivotal Trial | Vivek Y Reddy, Hugh Calkins, Moussa Mansour, Oussama Wazni, Luigi Di Biase, Marwan Bahu, David Newton, Christopher F Liu, William H Sauer, Sandeep Goyal, Vivek Iyer, Devi Nair, Charles Athill, Ayman Hussein, Patrick Whalen, Daniel Melby, Andrea Natale, AdmIRE Trial Investigators | Vivek Y Reddy | Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital, United States | Circulation | 90 | 10.1161/circulationaha.124.070333 |
| 10 | Pulmonary Vein Isolation With Optimized Linear Ablation vs Pulmonary Vein Isolation Alone for Persistent AF | Caihua Sang, Qiang Liu, Yiwei Lai, Shijun Xia, Ruhong Jiang, Songnan Li, Qi Guo, Qifan Li, Mingyang Gao, Xueyuan Guo, Lihong Huang, Nian Liu, Chenxi Jiang, Song Zuo, Xiaoxia Liu, Mengmeng Li, Weili Ge, Shangming Song, Lianghua Chen, Shuanglun Xie, Jiangang Zou, Ke Chen, Xiangfei Liu, Hesheng Hu, Xinhua Wang, Jinlin Zhang, Zhaojun Wang, Chi Wang, Liu He, Chao Jiang, Ribo Tang, Ning Zhou, Yunlong Wang, Deyong Long, Xin Du, Chenyang Jiang, Laurent Macle, Jianzeng Dong, Changsheng Ma, PROMPT-AF investigators | Chenxi Jiang, Chao Qiang Jiang, Chenyang Jiang, Changsheng Ma | Beijing Anzhen Hospital, China | JAMA | 83 | 10.1001/jama.2024.24438 |
| 11 | Dual-energy lattice-tip ablation system for persistent atrial fibrillation: a randomized trial | Elad Anter, Moussa Mansour, Devi G Nair, Dinesh Sharma, Tyler L Taigen, Petr Neuzil, Erich L Kiehl, Josef Kautzner, Jose Osorio, Stavros Mountantonakis, Andrea Natale, John D Hummel, Anish K Amin, Usman R Siddiqui, Doron Harlev, Paul Hultz, Shufeng Liu, Birce Onal, Khaldoun G Tarakji, Vivek Y Reddy, SPHERE PER-AF Investigators | Elad Anter | Shamir Medical Center, Israel | Nature Medicine | 75 | 10.1038/s41591-024-03022-6 |
| 12 | Atrial secondary tricuspid regurgitation: pathophysiology, definition, diagnosis, and treatment | Denisa Muraru, Luigi P Badano, Rebecca T Hahn, Roberto M Lang, Victoria Delgado, Nina C Wunderlich, Erwan Donal, Maurizio Taramasso, Alison Duncan, Philipp Lurz, Tom De Potter, José L Zamorano Gómez, Jeroen J Bax, Ralph Stephan von Bardeleben, Maurice Enriquez-Sarano, Francesco Maisano, Fabien Praz, Marta Sitges | Fabien Praz | University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy | European Heart Journal | 75 | 10.1093/eurheartj/ehae088 |
| 13 | Characterization and Clinical Significance of Hemolysis After Pulsed Field Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation: Results of a Multicenter Analysis | Miruna A Popa, Sandrine Venier, Roberto Menè, Domenico Giovanni Della Rocca, Frédéric Sacher, Nicolas Derval, Mélèze Hocini, Stéphanie Dulucq, Guido Caluori, Stéphane Combes, Jean-Paul Albenque, Federica Saitta, Bernhard Haller, Gian-Battista Chierchia, Carlo de Asmundis, Pascal Defaye, Serge Boveda, Pierre Jaïs | Miruna A Popa | Department of Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology, France | Circulation Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology | 75 | 10.1161/circep.124.012732 |
| 14 | Longer and better lives for patients with atrial fibrillation: the 9th AFNET/EHRA consensus conference | Dominik Linz, Jason G Andrade, Elena Arbelo, Giuseppe Boriani, Guenter Breithardt, A John Camm, Valeria Caso, Jens Cosedis Nielsen, Mirko De Melis, Tom De Potter, Wolfgang Dichtl, Søren Zoega Diederichsen, Dobromir Dobrev, Nicolas Doll, David Duncker, Elke Dworatzek, Lars Eckardt, Christoph Eisert, Larissa Fabritz, Michal Farkowski, David Filgueiras-Rama, Andreas Goette, Eduard Guasch, Guido Hack, Stéphane Hatem, Karl Georg Haeusler, Jeff S Healey, Hein Heidbuechel, Ziad Hijazi, Lucas H Hofmeister, Leif Hove-Madsen, Thomas Huebner, Stefan Kääb, Dipak Kotecha, Katarzyna Malaczynska-Rajpold, José Luis Merino, Andreas Metzner, Lluís Mont, Ghulam Andre Ng, Michael Oeff, Abdul Shokor Parwani, Helmut Puererfellner, Ursula Ravens, Michiel Rienstra, Prashanthan Sanders, Daniel Scherr, Renate Schnabel, Ulrich Schotten, Christian Sohns, Gerhard Steinbeck, Daniel Steven, Tobias Toennis, Stylianos Tzeis, Isabelle C van Gelder, Roderick H van Leerdam, Kevin Vernooy, Manish Wadhwa, Reza Wakili, Stephan Willems, Henning Witt, Stef Zeemering, Paulus Kirchhof | Dominik Linz | Maastricht University Medical Center, Netherlands | EP Europace | 74 | 10.1093/europace/euae070 |
| 15 | Edoxaban Antithrombotic Therapy for Atrial Fibrillation and Stable Coronary Artery Disease | Min Soo Cho, Do-Yoon Kang, Jung-Min Ahn, Sung-Cheol Yun, Yong-Seog Oh, Chang Hoon Lee, Eue-Keun Choi, Ji Hyun Lee, Chang Hee Kwon, Gyung-Min Park, Hyung Oh Choi, Kyoung-Ha Park, Kyoung-Min Park, Jongmin Hwang, Ki-Dong Yoo, Young-Rak Cho, Ji Hyun Kim, Ki Won Hwang, Eun-Sun Jin, Osung Kwon, Ki-Hun Kim, Seung-Jung Park, Duk-Woo Park, Gi-Byoung Nam, EPIC-CAD Investigators | Min Soo Cho | Asan Medical Center, South Korea | New England Journal of Medicine | 74 | 10.1056/nejmoa2407362 |
| 16 | Temporal trends in lifetime risks of atrial fibrillation and its complications between 2000 and 2022: Danish, nationwide, population based cohort study | Nicklas Vinter, Pia Cordsen, Søren Paaske Johnsen, Laila Staerk, Emelia J Benjamin, Lars Frost, Ludovic Trinquart | Nicklas Vinter | Aalborg University, Denmark | BMJ | 66 | 10.1136/bmj-2023-077209 |
| 17 | Comparing CHA2DS2-VA and CHA2DS2-VASc scores for stroke risk stratification in patients with atrial fibrillation: a temporal trends analysis from the retrospective Finnish AntiCoagulation in Atrial Fibrillation (FinACAF) cohort | Konsta Teppo, Gregory Yoke Hong Lip, Kari Eino Juhani Airaksinen, Olli Halminen, Jari Haukka, Jukka Putaala, Pirjo Mustonen, Miika Linna, Juha Hartikainen, Mika Lehto | Konsta Teppo, Gregory Y.H. Lip | Turku University Hospital and University of Turku, Finland | The Lancet Regional Health - Europe | 65 | 10.1016/j.lanepe.2024.100967 |
| 18 | Minimum National Prevalence of Diagnosed Atrial Fibrillation Inferred From California Acute Care Facilities | Jean Jacques Noubiap, Janet J Tang, Justin T Teraoka, Thomas A Dewland, Gregory M Marcus | Gregory M. Marcus | University of California-San Francisco, United States | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 61 | 10.1016/j.jacc.2024.07.014 |
| 19 | Optimal timing of anticoagulation after acute ischaemic stroke with atrial fibrillation (OPTIMAS): a multicentre, blinded-endpoint, phase 4, randomised controlled trial | David J Werring, Hakim-Moulay Dehbi, Norin Ahmed, Liz Arram, Jonathan G Best, Maryam Balogun, Kate Bennett, Ekaterina Bordea, Emilia Caverly, Marisa Chau, Hannah Cohen, Mairead Cullen, Caroline J Doré, Stefan T Engelter, Robert Fenner, Gary A Ford, Aneet Gill, Rachael Hunter, Martin James, Archana Jayanthi, Gregory Y H Lip, Sue Massingham, Macey L Murray, Iwona Mazurczak, Philip S Nash, Amalia Ndoutoumou, Bo Norrving, Hannah Sims, Nikola Sprigg, Tishok Vanniyasingam, Nick Freemantle, OPTIMAS investigators | David J. Werring | University College London, United Kingdom | The Lancet | 60 | 10.1016/s0140-6736(24)02197-4 |
| 20 | Acute Kidney Injury Resulting From Hemoglobinuria After Pulsed-Field Ablation in Atrial Fibrillation | Sanghamitra Mohanty, Michela Casella, Paolo Compagnucci, Prem Geeta Torlapati, Domenico Giovanni Della Rocca, Vincenzo Mirco La Fazia, Carola Gianni, Gian-Battista Chierchia, Bryan MacDonald, Angel Mayedo, Umer N Khan, John Allison, Mohamed Bassiouny, G Joseph Gallinghouse, John D Burkhardt, Rodney Horton, Amin Al-Ahmad, Luigi Di Biase, Carlo de Asmundis, Antonio Dello Russo, Andrea Natale | Sanghamitra Mohanty | Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute, United States | JACC. Clinical electrophysiology | 58 | 10.1016/j.jacep.2023.12.008 |

## Topic trends

### What Topics Define the Class of 2026?

The informative word cloud across the 50 highest 18-month-cited atrial fibrillation management and outcomes papers reveals a field organized around ablation technology competition, procedural endpoints, and stroke-risk stratification rather than generic disease labels. Pulsed field ablation leads at 17 of 50 papers (normalized frequency 0.34), closely followed by catheter ablation (16 papers, 0.32) and pulmonary vein isolation (15 papers, 0.30)—a trio that frames how influential 2024 publications benchmark emerging energy modalities against established catheter-based isolation strategies. Radiofrequency ablation remains highly visible (10 papers, 0.20), alongside cryoballoon ablation, pentaspline ablation catheter, hybrid ablation, and surgical ablation, underscoring sustained citation weight for comparative ablation trials and device-specific outcomes. A parallel cluster centers on anticoagulation and thromboembolic risk: CHA2DS2-VASc score (9 papers, 0.18), direct oral anticoagulants, major bleeding, and left atrial appendage occlusion appear alongside rhythm-control vocabulary such as electrical cardioversion, blanking period, and atrial fibrillation burden. Mid-sized terms highlight AF subtype framing—paroxysmal and persistent atrial fibrillation—alongside recurrence, drug-refractory disease, and ambulatory ECG monitoring. Smaller but visible concepts—including incident atrial fibrillation, atrial fibrillation screening, wearable single-lead ECG monitoring, and female sex as a stroke risk factor—signal growing emphasis on population detection, sex-specific risk, and longitudinal cohort evidence alongside procedural innovation.

*Leading research themes*

### How Did Topics Shift from the Class of 2025 to the Class of 2026?

Comparing normalized concept frequencies between the Class of 2025 (2023 publications) and Class of 2026 (2024 publications) cohorts shows a reorientation of early-high-impact research priorities within atrial fibrillation management. Incident atrial fibrillation exhibited one of the largest gains (+0.08 normalized frequency; 1 versus 5 papers), followed by surgical ablation (+0.08; 1 versus 5) and hybrid ablation (+0.06; 1 versus 4), with additional increases for radiofrequency ablation (+0.04), CHA2DS2-VASc score (+0.04), electrical cardioversion (+0.04), and atrial fibrillation burden (+0.02). The topic evolution card underscores that Class of 2026 bars extend furthest for pulsed field ablation, catheter ablation, pulmonary vein isolation, and radiofrequency ablation—topics aligned with head-to-head ablation technology trials and updated guideline consensus. Conversely, several themes prominent in the Class of 2025 cohort receded: paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (−0.10), atrial fibrillation recurrence (−0.10), arrhythmia-free survival (−0.10), antiarrhythmic drug therapy (−0.08), repeat ablation (−0.06), persistent atrial fibrillation (−0.06), left atrial appendage occlusion (−0.06), and major bleeding (−0.06). Direct oral anticoagulants (−0.04) and pulmonary vein isolation (−0.04) also declined modestly in relative prominence. Together, these shifts suggest that the most-cited 2024 papers emphasize next-generation ablation modalities, incident-AF epidemiology, and expanded surgical-hybrid options, while paroxysmal-AF subtype framing and recurrence-centric procedural endpoints lost ground among early-high-impact work.

*How topics shifted year over year*

## Cite this ranking

```
Pepkio Research Index (PRI). Topics and Trends in Most Cited Atrial Fibrillation Management and Outcomes Papers, Class of 2026. https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/atrial-fibrillation-management-and-outcomes/2026. Accessed 2026-07-14.

Zheng Su, Tinsley Li, Thematic Shifts in Early-High-Impact Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics Research: A Bibliometric and Semantic Analysis. bioRxiv 2026.07.04.736459; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.04.736459
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