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Education in Heart
Anticoagulation in atrial fibrillation
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  • Published on: 23 March 2021
    maximising opportunistic screening and maximising "goal" blood pressure
    • oscar,m jolobe, retired geriatrician member(but not an affiliate) of the Manchester Medical Society. Also member of the British Medical Association

    The management of hypertension generates huge opportunities for opportunistic screening for atrial fibrillation(AF). To maximise that opportunity documentation of regularity of the pulse and, hence, for AF, should be routine at each visit to primary care or to secondary care. Furthermore, that should be the routine during follow up visits of patients with known hypertension. The rationale is that hypertension is a recognised risk factor for incident AF(1), and for progression of paroxysmal AF to permanent AF(2). thereby mandating a recognition that patients with known hypertension should be allocated to a high risk subgroup in whom opportunistic screening for AF should be maximised. There are opportunities for AF screening even with home blood pressure measurement. Some self blood pressure measuring devices trigger an alert when there is an irregularity in the pulse. Patients should be educated to inform their doctor when such alerts occur so that the patient can be evaluated further by electrocardiography.
    The treatment phase of hypertension addresses the challenge of atrial fibrillation by mitigating the risk of new onset development of that arrhythmia. Using data from SPRINT(Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial) Soliman et al showed that intensive blood pressure lowering to a systolic blood pressure of < 120 mm Hg was associated with a 26% lower risk of developing new AF(hazard ratio, 0.74[95% Confidence Interval, 0.56-0.98]; P=0.37(3). What n...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.