Atrial fibrillation

Abstract

AF is the most common sustained arrhythmia seen in clinical practice with an overall prevalence of 700-750 per 100,000 of the population in North America (Chugh et al., Circulation 129:837-847, 2014). In addition to causing considerable adverse sequelae and an increase in hospitalizations, there is a five-fold increase in the risk of stroke associated with non-valvular AF (Wolf et al., Stroke 22:983-988, 1991) which increases by a factor of 17 in the presence of significant valvular heart disease (Fuster et al., Circulation 123:e269-e367, 2011). The risk of AF increases markedly with older age affecting approximately 5% of people over 65 years and 10% of people age over 80 years (Miyasaka et al., Circulation 2006; 12: 114-119, 2006).