The development of atrial fibrillation following surgery is an important risk factor for heart failure, researchers report today.
Patients in the study had surgery for a range of reasons, not only heart conditions.
Dr Parag Goyal of Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, USA, and colleagues examined the link between post-operative atrial fibrillation and subsequent hospitalisation for heart failure.
They analysed hospital databases on adults in 11 USA states, covering 76,536 patients who underwent cardiac surgery. Of these, 19% developed atrial fibrillation.
Developing atrial fibrillation raised the chance of being hospitalised for heart failure by 33%. The risk remained after a year, when the chance of hospitalisation was still 15%.
In an analysis of 2,929,854 patients who had non-cardiac surgery, 0.8% developed post-operative atrial fibrillation, which was linked to a double in the risk of hospitalisation for heart failure, and a 49% higher risk after a year.
Details appear in *European Heart Journal* today. Dr Goyal commented: “This could mean that atrial fibrillation is an important indicator of underlying but not yet detected heart failure; or it could mean that atrial fibrillation itself contributes to the future development of heart failure.
"While this study could not specifically address which of these mechanisms are at play, our hope is that this study will inspire future work into exploring the underlying mechanism seen in our important findings.
He concluded: “Regardless of the mechanism, our study shows that post-operative atrial fibrillation is clearly an important entity that merits attention and incorporation into decision making."
Goyal, P. et al. Post-operative atrial fibrillation and risk of heart failure hospitalization. *European Heart Journal* 29 June 2022; doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehac285
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