CARDIOVASCULAR JOURNAL OF AFRICA • Volume 34, No 5, November/December 2023 AFRICA 305 unlike multicentre and cross-sectional studies. Second, there are no follow-up results. Third, data from all patients were collected from this single centre, which may lead to biased results. Fourth, we could not observe time-dependent changes in RDW values and postoperative AF due to the retrospective study design. Accordingly, we could not evaluate the causal relationship between RDW values and the development of postoperative AF. Fifth, we did not evaluate RDW and other inflammatory biomarkers other than CRP and ESR in the patients included in the study. Sixth, the inflammatory process is dynamic and has persistence, but RDW levels were not dynamically measured multiple times in our study. Therefore, the dynamic trend and value of the indicator were not reflected in this study. 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