Atrial Fibrillation
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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
-- To view the remaining sections of this topic, please log in or purchase a subscription --
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
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