Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is the most common arrhythmia in clinical practice (Figure 2), and this will be the major part of this presentation. AFib accounts for approximately one third of hospitalizations for cardiac rhythm disturbances. The most feared complication of AFib is stroke, with AFib being responsible for approximately 1 in 6 strokes; if we were speaking only of ischemic stroke then the proportion is even higher.[1] In addition, the proportion of strokes attributable to AFib increases in the older age range, meaning that in octogenarians, for example, 1 in 3 strokes is due to AFib.

Furthermore, recent data suggest that a proportion of so-called cryptogenic strokes are due to AFib,[2] which means that if anything, these numbers may be underestimating the amount of stroke due to AFib.