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EVERYTHING
YOU NEED TO KNOW
ABOUT
ATRIAL FIBRILLATION
ATRIAL FIBRILLATION
WHAT IS AF?
F is a condition in which the atria, the upper chambers of the heart, beat in an A
uncoordinated and disorganised way, resulting in an irregular heart rhythm. This can lead to serious complications including stroke and deterioration of the heart function.1 Despite the seriousness of the condition, many people consider AF to be a benign condition.
“Many people underestimate how serious AF is. Although AF doesn’t cause death immediately,
patients have to live with the condition for the rest of their life and have lots of problems.”
Professor John Camm, St George’s Hospital, University of London
How common is AF?
AF is the most common of the heart rhythm disorders (cardiac
arrhythmias).1 AF affects one in 25 adults who are 60 years or
older and nearly one in 10 adults who are 80 years or older.2
“AF is considered to be one of the three growing
cardiovascular epidemics of the 21st Century in
conjunction with congestive heart failure and type 2 diabetes”3
What happens during AF?
In people with AF, abnormal electrical activity, in other areas
of the atria, disrupt the heart’s normal rhythm. This causes
the atria to beat extremely rapidly and irregularly at rates
of 400-600 beats per minute.4 This leads to an increase in
the rate at which the larger lower chambers of the heart (the
ventricles) beat, rising to 110-180 beats per minute.
Why does AF occur?
People are at increased risk of developing AF if they are
obese, have diabetes or a heart condition or have had a
heart attack. Poor diet and a lack of exercise are also risk
factors, along with age, as older people may develop AF
even if they do not have any underlying heart disease.1
What are the symptoms of AF?
People with AF often experience distressing symptoms
including palpitations, chest pain, breathlessness, fatigue or
light-headedness. However, some people don’t even feel
anything when they have episodes of AF. This is known as
asymptomatic AF. People who have asymptomatic AF may
only discover they have AF when they incidentally receive
treatment for another condition.1
What do patients say who have AF?
“Suddenly I have a very fast heart beat. I feel on
the brink of passing out, disorientated, it makes me feel really very unwell.”
“I had a couple of bouts of breathlessness. During the night, I was scared to breathe out in case I couldn’t breathe again”
“It’s quite frightening – I feel my heart stop”
How is AF diagnosed?
AF can be detected by electrocardiogram (ECG). People
with AF do not have the P wave that normally occurs at the
beginning of each heartbeat. Instead, their heart oscillates
rapidly, with the waves varying in size, shape and timing.
However, diagnosis of AF can be difficult as episodes can
occur unpredictably. People with suspected AF may be given
an ECG recorder to wear for 24 hours, called a Holter, which
can pick up the arrhythmia any time, during the day or at night.
AF patients are five times more at risk of having a
stroke than people without AF6
One in every six strokes occurs in patients who have AF9
Who gets AF?
The risk of developing AF rises with age. At the age of 40,
this risk of developing AF rises to one in four people and the
risk continues to increase with age.5
Strokes linked to AF are typically more severe than
strokes not related to AF16
People who have AF without symptoms are also at an
increased risk of having a stroke17
ATRIAL FIBRILLATION
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ATRIAL FIBRILLATION
“ There is a mismatch between patients’ experience
and the medical view of the condition. Physicians
may underestimate the impact of AF on patients’
quality of life. If patients are given more information
on their treatment and possible side effects they are
more likely to take their medication.”
Professor Martin Cowie, Royal Brompton Hospital
Normal sinus rhythm. HOW IS AF TREATED?
Ensuring people with AF are treated effectively can be a
major challenge.1 In Europe, the main guidelines have been
developed in 2006, by the European Society of Cardiology,
in collaboration with the American Heart Association and
American College of Cardiology.1
What is the aim of treatment?
ECG of atrial fibrillation
The purple arrow indicates a P wave, which is lost in atrial fibrillation.
What are the different types of AF?
AF can be classified into three types:
Paroxysmal – AF recurs and each episode of AF lasts no more than seven days
Persistent – AF lasts longer than seven days
Permanent – Long-standing AF in which attempts
to restore normal heart beat (cardioversion) is either
ineffective or has not been attempted
How serious is AF?
AF is a complex heart condition, which often progresses. AF
is also a major cause of patients being admitted to hospital
because of the AF itself. The mortality rate of patients with
AF is about double that of patients with normal sinus rhythm
and is linked to the severity of underlying heart disease.7
AF may also have serious consequences, the most important
of which is stroke.6,7,8 One in every six strokes is caused by AF.8
This is because the heart does not pump the blood completely
out of the heart’s chambers. Instead, the blood pools and
clots and there is a risk that the clot will travel out of the heart
and block an artery in the brain.
During the past 20 years, there has been a 60 percent increase
in the number of people with AF being admitted to hospital as
a result of AF. This is probably due to the increasingly ageing
population and a rise in heart disease.10 AF therefore presents
a significant burden on healthcare budgets.11
The cost of AF
AF is an expensive public health problem. In England alone, AF absorbs almost 1 percent of the entire budget
of the NHS. In 1995, the direct cost of AF to the NHS
was between £244 and £531 million.
The main goals of treatment are to restore a normal heart
rhythm (cardioversion), restore normal heart rate and to
prevent stroke.1 There is an ongoing debate about whether
restoring heart rhythm (rhythm control) or restoring heart
rate (rate control) is the better approach to AF treatment.
Regardless of whether people with AF receive drugs
for rhythm or rate control, they should also have anticoagulation therapy to prevent the blood clotting and
reduce the risk of having a stroke.
Rate or Rhythm control, which is best?
Recent studies suggest that controlling heart rhythm is not
superior to controlling heart rate, and that rhythm control
is more costly and less convenient than rate control.
However, young people who experience AF symptoms
frequently, or people who have recently developed AF,
tend to be treated with rhythm control drugs. It is likely
that if safer and more effective anti-arrhythmic drugs were
available, these would be used in more people with AF.
Generally, doctors prefer drugs that restore and maintain
the heart’s rhythm, despite concerns over side effects.14
The limitations of restoring and maintaining normal heart
rate is that it does not stop patients having AF, and the AF
continues to evolve. As a result, people with AF continue
to experience symptoms including an irregular heartbeat,
despite a slower heart rate. In addition, drugs used to
control heart rate such as beta-blockers and calcium
channel blockers are also associated with side effects.
The advantages of controlling heart rhythm include
reducing the person’s symptoms, improving the person’s
physical fitness levels, reducing the person’s risk of stroke,
reducing the person’s need for anti-clotting drugs and
reducing the person’s risk of death.18 Rhythm control is
usually given to younger symptomatic patients while rate
control is generally given to older patients.
What treatments exist for AF?
which can be very serious.12,13 The goal of ongoing drug
“ For those patients it helps, catheter AF ablation is a
great relief, but it is not a cure, patients who have had an ablation still need drugs to prevent their blood clotting which can cause a stroke.”
development is not only to prevent the arrhythmia but also to
Professor John Camm, St George’s Hospital, University of London
Anti-arrhythmic drugs are widely used to restore the heart’s
normal rhythm and prevent AF. These drugs are effective but
can also cause serious side-effects including arrhythmias,
provide patients with a therapy with fewer side-effects. New
anti-arrhythmic drugs are believed to have more benefits and
lower risks compared to existing anti-arrhythmic drugs.14
In contrast with drugs that restore the heart’s rhythm, there
have been fewer advances with drugs that restore the heart’s
rate such as beta-blockers, calcium-channel blockers,
digoxin and adenosine.14
What other treatment options exist for AF?
Other techniques to restore heart rhythm include
cardioversion and ablation. Cardioversion is used to reset
and restore sinus rhythm (normal heart rhythm) in people
who have persistent AF. It may involve drugs or electric
What are the risks of cardioversion and ablation?
Restoring the heart rate (cardioversion) carries a risk of
stroke unless anti-clotting therapy is initiated before the
treatment. The development of new drugs has increased the
popularity of drug-based methods of restoring heart rhythm,
despite the potential side effects.
Drug-based rhythm control therapies do not require the
patient to be sedated, which is necessary if electrical stimuli
are used to restore heart rhythm. The risk of stroke is the
same whether drugs are used to restore heart rhythm or
electrical stimuli are used.1
People with AF have impaired quality of life comparable
to people who have had a heart attack19
chest pain in patients with heart disease.
One third of patients experience significant anxiety
or depression20
Catheter ablation is a surgical technique where wires are
Ablation is a complicated procedure and can only be
successfully performed in highly specialised centres. A single
ablation procedure may take three to six hours. For patients who
benefit, it is an important procedure, but it is only undertaken
when there are clear benefits. As ablation techniques improve,
it is likely to be used more widely, but currently ablation is only
used with a small number of people with permanent AF, who do
not respond to drugs to control the heart rate.14
stimuli, and is often performed when the AF is likely to lead
to heart failure, abnormally low blood pressure, or severe
passed through a patient’s vein into the heart, so that
radiofrequency waves can be used to destroy (ablate)
the affected area inside the heart that is causing the
abnormal heart rhythm. The procedure is done under a
local anaesthetic and with sedation. The patients most
likely to benefit from this procedure are those with rapid
heart rate during AF episodes that cannot be controlled
adequately with drugs.15 People who have ablation need
to have a permanent pacemaker implanted to replace the
natural pacemaker tissues destroyed during the procedure.
Although ablation can be highly effective in controlling the
patient’s heart rate, it does not cure AF in all cases.
What’s on the horizon?
There are a number of drugs under development including
nexterone, budiodarone, ranolazine, connexin modulators,
dronedarone and vernakalant. None of these drugs are
available in the UK at present.14
CONCLUSION
Despite the serious health burden caused by AF, there are real advances on the horizon
for people with the condition. As Professor John Camm, Head of the Department of
Cardiac & Vascular Sciences, St George’s Hospital, University of London, says, “We need
earlier and better diagnosis and treatment of AF, improved anti-coagulation and anti-arrhythmics. All of this is within our grasp. There are many therapies that will
become available over the next few years. We now need to be more proactive about
finding AF and applying these therapies.”
ATRIAL FIBRILLATION
EVERYTH EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ATRIAL FIBRILLATION
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ATRIAL FIBRILLATION
GLOSSARY
Ablation
A procedure in which tissue is removed, usually by
vaporisation, using radio waves. The term is often used in the
context of laser ablation, a process in which a laser dissolves
a material's molecular bonds. See also catheter ablation
Anti-coagulation
A process in the body whereby a substance (anti-coagulants)
stops blood from clotting
Anti-arrhythmic drugs
A group of products used to suppress abnormal heart
rhythms, such as atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, ventricular
tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation
Arrhythmia
An irregular rhythm of the heart, resulting in the heart beating
too slowly, too quickly or irregularly
Atria
The top two chambers in the heart, which receive blood as it
returns to the heart thus completing a circulatory cycle. The
ventricle pumps blood out of the heart to start a new cycle
Atrial Fibrillation
A condition in which the top two chambers of the heart (the
atria), beat irregularly due to an abnormal heart rhythm
Cardioversion
A process which aims to restore an arrhythmic heart to its
normal rhythm. It can take two forms: synchonized electrical
and pharmacologic cardioversion. Synchonized electrical
cardioversion is the application of an electric shock to restore
normal heartbeat, whilst pharmacologic cardioversion uses
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1ACC/AHA/ESC 2006 guidelines for the management of patients with atrial
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2.Go A.S., Hylek E.M., Phillips K.A., et al. Prevalence of diagnosed atrial
fibrillation in adults: national implications for rhythm management
and stroke prevention: the AnTicoagulation and Risk Factors in Atrial
Fibrillation (ATRIA) Study. JAMA 2001; 285:2370–5.
3.B J Gersh, et al The changing epidemiology of non-valvular atrial
fibrillation: the role of novel risk factors Eur Heart Journal, 2005; 7 (supp C)
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4.Johan E.P. Waktare. Atrial Fibrillation. Circulation 2002;106;14-16.
5.Lloyd-Jones D.M, Wang T.W., Leip E.P, et al. Lifetime Risk for
Development of Atrial Fibrillation: The Framingham Heart Study.
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6.Wolf P.A., Dawber T.R., Thomas H.E. Jr, et al. Epidemiologic assessment
of chronic atrial fibrillation and risk of stroke: the Framingham study.
Neurology. 1978; 28: 973-77.
7.Stewart S, Hart C.L., Hole D.J., et al. A population-based study of the
long-term risks associated with atrial fibrillation: 20-year follow-up of the
Renfrew/Paisley study. Am J Med 2002; 113:359–64.
8.Benjamin E.J., Wolf P.A., D’Agostino R.B., et al. Impact of atrial fibrillation
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9.Hart R.G, Halperin J.L. Atrial fibrillation and thromboembolism: a decade
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for atrial fibrillation. Epidemiology 2003;14:666–72.
medication such as amiodarone, diltiazem, verapamil and
metoprolol for the same purpose
Catheter ablation
A non-surgical technique that destroys (ablates) parts of
the abnormal electrical pathway that is causing arrhythmia.
Used to treat conditions such as atrial fibrillation, atrial
flutter, supraventricular tachycardias (SVT) and WolffParkinson-White syndrome. The procedure involves placing
flexible catheters into blood vessels and using highfrequency electrical impulses to induce the arrhythmia and
destroy the causal abnormal tissue
Electrocardiogram (ECG)
A non-invasive recording of the electrical output of the
heart over time using an electrocardiographic device,
measured at selectively placed electrodes on the skin.
The ECG displays the voltage between pairs of these
electrodes, which indicates the overall rhythm of the heart
and weaknesses in different parts of the heart muscle
Sinus rhythm
A term used to describe the normal beating of the heart,
as measured by an electrocardiogram (ECG). Sinus rhythm
is characterized by a usual rate of anywhere between 60
and100 beats per minute (bpm)
Stroke
Rapid loss of brain function(s) due to disturbance in the
blood supply to the brain (ischemia) leading to an inability
of limb movement, speech formation or lack of visual
activity
11.National Service Framework for Coronary Heart Disease. Chapter Eight:
Arrhythmias and Sudden Cardiac Death. March 2005
12.Doggrell S.A, Hancox J.C. Dronedarone: an amiodarone analogue. Expert
Opin Investig Drugs. 2004; 13: 415-26.
13.Waldo A.L, Camm J, de Ruyteret H, et al. Effect of d-sotalol on mortality
in patients with left ventricular dysfunction after recent and remote
myocardial infarction. The SWORD Investigators. Survival With Oral dSotalol. Lancet 1996;348(9019):7-12.
14.Savelieva I, Camm J. Anti-arrhythmic drug therapy for atrial fibrillation:
current anti-arrhythmic drugs, investigational agents, and innovative
approaches. Europace (2008) 10, 647–665
15.Wood M.A, Brown-Mahoney C, Kay G.N, et al. Clinical outcomes
after ablation and pacing therapy for atrial fibrillation: a meta-analysis.
Circulation 2000;101:1138–44.
16.Dulli DA et al. Atrial fibrillation is associated with severe acute ischemic
stroke Neuroepidemiology. 2003;22(2):118-23
17.Page RL, et al. Azimilide Supraventricular Arrhythmia Program (ASAP)
Investigators. Asymptomatic or “silent” atrial fibrillation: frequency
in untreated patients and patients receiving azimilide Circulation
2003;107:1141–1145
18.The atrial fibrillation follow-up investigation of rhythm management
(AFFIRM) investigators, A comparison of rate control and rhythm control in
patients with atrial fibrillation 2002, NEJM, number 23, volume 347
19.Dorian P, et al. The impairment of health-related quality of life in patients
with intermittent atrial fibrillation: implications for the assessment of
investigational therapy J Am Coll Cardiol 2000;36:1303–1309
20.Thrall G, et al. Depression, anxiety, and quality of life in patients with atrial
fibrillation Chest 2007;132:1259–1264