European Heart Journal Advance Access originally published online on March 10, 2008
European Heart Journal 2008 29(7):840-842; doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehm594
Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2008. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Atrial fibrillation subtypes, risk of stroke, and antithrombotic therapy
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Via Mosè Bianchi, 90, 20149 Milano, Italy
* Corresponding author. Tel: +39 02 619112850, Fax: +39 02 619112850, Email: stramba_badiale@auxologico.it
This editorial refers to Should we abandon the common practice of withholding oral anticoagulation in paroxysmal atrial fibrillation?
by R. Nieuwlaat et al., on page 915
Footnotes
The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the Editors of the European Heart Journal or of the European Society of Cardiology.
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
Despite a significant decline in the last 50 years, stroke remains the third leading cause of mortality in men and the second in women.1 Stroke also represents the leading cause of disability and the second of dementia, with a tremendous impact on the affected patients and their relatives. Approximately one-third of ischaemic strokes are caused by an embolus originating from the heart, and in the majority of these cases atrial fibrillation is responsible for the thromboembolic event. This proportion may be even higher, as the role of atrial fibrillation in the pathogenesis of stroke may be underestimated. In fact, the observation of sinus rhythm on the surface electrocardiogram at hospital admission for stroke, in the absence of clinical history
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- Should we abandon the common practice of withholding oral anticoagulation in paroxysmal atrial fibrillation?
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EHJ 2008 29: 915-922.[Abstract] [FREE Full Text]