Atrial Fibrillation in Patients with Acute Pulmonary Embolism: Clinical Significance and Impact on Prognosis.

Atrial Fibrillation in Patients with Acute Pulmonary Embolism: Clinical Significance and Impact on Prognosis. Biomed Res Int. 2019;2019:7846291 Authors: Ptaszynska-Kopczynska K, Kiluk I, Sobkowicz B Abstract Pulmonary embolism (PE) is one of the most common causes of cardiovascular death. The most often PE etiology is a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) of the lower extremities, but embolic material can arise in pelvic or upper extremity veins as well as in right heart chambers. There is growing number of evidences of atrial fibrillation (AF) involvement in PE. The presence of AF in patients with PE may be both the cause and the consequence of PE. The PE association with AF should be considered in patients without confirmed DVT and with history of AF, which itself is associated with prothrombotic state. The valuable diagnostic method is echocardiography that may bring the insight into source of embolic material. Another possible AF and PE association is the AF as a consequence of an abrupt increase in pulmonary vascular resistance due to the occlusion of the pulmonary vessels. Large-scale population-based studies have provided a considerable body of evidence on the involvement of PE in the onset of subsequent AF. Another important issue is the influence of AF on prognosis in patients with PE. Most investigators demonstrated a negative impact of AF on mortality. The main problem to resolve is whether AF is an independent mortality risk facto...
Source: Biomed Res - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Biomed Res Int Source Type: research