In the Women’s Health Study, which followed nearly 35,000 women for more than 15 years, mortality was significantly higher in the 1011 women who developed AF than in the women who did not, according to a report by David Conen and colleagues published in JAMA. Here are the incidence rates (per 1000 person-years of follow-up)…

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Atrial fibrillation may add $26 billion to the nation’s healthcare bill, according to a study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Michael Kim and colleagues compared insurance claims for 1 year from 89,066 AF patients with claims from controls matched for gender, age, and other medical conditions and found that AF results in a…

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Less than two months after the publication of the 2010 updated atrial fibrillation (AF) guidelines, the AHA, the ACC, and the HRS have released a new focused update incorporating recommendations and a discussion concerning the direct thrombin inhibitor dabigatran, which gains a Class I recommendation: Class I: Dabigatran is useful as an alternative to warfarin…

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A new trial presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrates that the novel factor Xa inhibitor apixaban is better than aspirin for the prevention of stroke in AF patients who are unable to take warfarin. Stuart Connolly and investigators in the AVERROES (Apixaban…

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The FDA has released a safety communication about severe liver injury associated with Multaq (dronedarone). The FDA said that information about the risk of liver injury would be added to the dronedarone label. The drug’s manufacturer, Sanofi-Aventis, has also sent a letter to healthcare professionals informing them of the warning. The FDA is recommending that doctors…

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Long-term results after catheter ablation for AF are decidedly mixed, according to the longest study yet to follow patients after the procedure. In a report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Rukshen Weerasooriya and colleagues followed 100 patients treated at a French hospital for 5 years. After a single procedure, the rates of arrhythmia-free survival…

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A focused update on the guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation has been released by the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, and Heart Rhythm Society. Most notably, the new guidelines incorporate recent data from clinical trials evaluating dronedarone, clopidogrel, strict rate control, and catheter ablation. Here are the major highlights: Dronedarone can…

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Medtronic announced today that it has received FDA approval for its Arctic Front® Cardiac CryoAblation Catheter system for the treatment of refractory paroxysmal AF.

In sharp contrast to earlier studies suggesting a positive effect, a large study of high-dose prescription omega-3 fatty acids found no evidence of benefit in treating atrial fibrillation. The trial, called the Efficacy and Safety of Prescription Omega-3 Acid Ethyl Esters (P-OM3) for the Prevention of Recurrent Symptomatic Atrial Fibrillation, included 663 patients with AF (542…

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Although it is well known that there is a heritable component to atrial fibrillation (AF), the precise clinical significance of familial AF has been unclear. Steven Lubitz and colleagues analyzed data from the Framingham Heart Study to assess the incremental predictive value of familial AF in a risk model for new-onset AF. In a presentation at…

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