Atrial Fibrillation

Basics

Description

  • Dysrhythmia characterized by seemingly disorganized atrial depolarizations without effective atrial contraction
  • Caused by multiple re-entrant waveforms within the atria
  • Atrial rate ranges from 350–600 beats per minute (bpm)
  • Decrease in cardiac output with 3-fold risk of heart failure
  • Prone to embolus formation with 5-fold risk of stroke
  • Most common clinical arrhythmia:
    • Prevalence increasing with age

Etiology

  • Systemic disease:
    • HTN
    • Hyperthyroidism
    • Chronic pulmonary disease
    • Infection
    • Pulmonary embolus
    • Hypoxia
    • Drugs (e.g., sympathomimetics)
    • Acute alcohol ingestion (holiday heart syndrome)
    • Obesity
    • Electrolyte disturbance
    • Thyroid disease
  • Underlying cardiac disease:
    • Cardiomyopathy
    • CAD
    • Valvular disease, especially mitral
    • Pericarditis
    • Sick sinus syndrome
    • Myocardial contusion
    • CHF
    • Congenital heart disease
  • Idiopathic:
    • Absence of any known etiologic factor
    • No clinical or echocardiographic evidence of heart disease

There's more to see -- the rest of this topic is available only to subscribers.

© 2000–2025 Unbound Medicine, Inc. All rights reserved
All content is protected by copyright and may not be used for AI model training or other unauthorized purposes.