In parallel, a 53,000-patient cohort demonstrated that elevated post-operative C-reactive protein independently predicts POAF, highlighting the inflammatory component that extensive nodal clearance exacerbates [28]; together, these data suggest that limiting dissection to lobe-specific stations can shorten operative time, blunt inflammation and roughly halve arrhythmia risk without sacrificing oncologic staging. Here, CRP is linked to cardiac arrhythmia.