Impact of AF on stroke risk eliminated with multiple risk factors

Medicalxpress: 9/1/13

Patients with five or more risk factors have the same stroke risk as patients with atrial fibrillation, according to research presented at the ESC Congress today by Dr. Christine Benn Christiansen from Denmark. The study included data on more than 4 million patients from Danish registries over a 10 year period.

Dr Benn Christiansen said: “We know that atrial fibrillation increases the risk of ischemic stroke. And in patients with atrial fibrillation or previous ischemic stroke, the risk of stroke increases with the number of risk factors. But until now, little attention has been paid to the association between stroke risk and risk factors in patients without prior stroke or atrial fibrillation. We wanted to explore that association and to quantify if stroke risk was of comparable size in patients with numerous risk factors.” Read more