Interv Akut Kardiol. 2007;6(3):97-101

Atrial fibrillation - new guidelines focused on cerebral embolism

Miroslava Laníková, Radek Pudil

I. interní klinika Fakultní nemocnice v Hradci Králové

The leading interest in recent years has been in risk stratification and prevention of thromboembolic complications in atrial fibrillation (AF) which, with its potential consequences, does definitely not belong to „innocent“ arrhythmias. Present guidelines for management of patients with atrial fibrillation focused on stroke, which is certainly a disabling complication of this rhythm disturbance. The precise mechanism predisposing to thrombus formation is unclear. However, we know that macroscopic, haemodynamic factors and also microscopic changes participate in its formation. An insignificant effort has also been made to identify risk factors, which would contribute to approaches in anticoagulation therapy. Despite an encouraging increase of antithrombotic therapy in the last couple of years, there are still a lot of patients who do not receive this treatment. One of the main tasks in the treatment of AF is to correctly identify high risk patients, whose gain from anticoagulation therapy is definite, and low risk patients who have not benefited from this treatment, on the contrary they are exposed to an unnecessary risk of bleeding. Just the higher focus on thrombotic complications and its prevention plays an important role in the decrease of incidence of these events in patients with AF.

Keywords: atrial fibrillation, anticoagulation therapy, stroke

Published: July 1, 2007  Show citation