Atrial fibrillation has gone from a boring disease to a very hot condition. Why is that?

Atrial fibrillation ( AF ) has gone from a boring disease to a very hot condition. 1 -9 Patients with AF have a higher risk of ischemic stroke or systemic embolism with a greater risk for female patients.In a paper from HongKong, the authors aimed to evaluate the risk of ischemic stroke or systemic embolism and bleeding following COVID-19 vaccination in patients with AF and the sex differences.They found that the risk of ischemic stroke or systemic embolism after COVID-19 vaccination was only increased in female patients with AF.Atrial fibrillation has a recognized association with not only stroke, but also neurocognitive impairment and both vascular and Alzheimer's dementia.Effectiv e management of AF can reduce the risk of such complications.In a narrative review article, Dr Lip and co-workers from UK discuss the pathophysiological links between AF and dementia, as well as the benefits of adherence to the guideline recommended 'ABC' Pathway.In a paper from Korea, Dr Kim and co-workers sought to investigate the impact of statin therapy on dementia risk in AF patients receiving OAC.In the Korean National Health Insurance Service database, 91 018 non-valvular AF ( NVAF ) patients from January 2013 to December 2017 were included in the analysis.Of the total, 17 700 patients ( 19.4% ) were in the statin therapy group, and 73 318 patients ( 80.6% ) were in the non-statin therapy group.The primary endpoint was the occurrence of dementia.The median duration of follow-up was 2.1 years .St atin therapy was associated with a significantly lower dementia risk than non-statin therapy for CHA2DS2-VASc scores ≥2.The authors concluded that in NVAF patients who received OAC, statin therapy lowered the dementia risk compared with no statin therapy.Furthermore, statin therapy was associated with a dose-dependent reduction in dementia risk.Evidence regarding the risks of serious hypoglycaemia for patients with AF and diabetes mellitus ( DM ) taking antidiabetic medications with concurrent nonvitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants ( NOACs ) vs. warfarin is limited. 10In a paper from Taiwan, Dr Tu and co-workers aimed to investigate this knowledge gap.In a retrospective cohort study they used nationwide data from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database and including a total of 56 774 adult patients treated with antidiabetic medications and