An observational study of the management practices and outcomes of patients with new onset atrial fibrillation in non-cardiothoracic surgeries

Postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) is the most common perioperative arrhythmia and its incidence in non-cardiothoracic surgery varies from 0.4% to 21% depending on the population studied.1,2 Traditionally, POAF was considered to be self-limited and have a favorable prognosis, but more recent data have challenged this assumption. POAF is associated with increased in-hospital mortality, length of stay and hospital costs.3,4 More recently few large studies have found that patients who develop postoperative AF have twice higher risk of stroke than those who did not two years after surgical hospitalization, although the incidence of stroke was less than 1%.

Source: Heart and Lung - November 14, 2019 Category: Intensive Care Authors: Mihaela Tiru, Anis John Kadado, Vida Rastegar, Kanval Shah, Kirti K Joshi, Peter Lindenauer, Tara Lagu, Mihaela S Stefan Source Type: research