CMAJ • September 28, 2004; 171 (7). doi:10.1503/cmaj.1031364.
© 2004 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association.
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Right arrow Arrhythmias

Review
Synthèse

Mechanisms of disease

Atrial fibrillation

George D. Veenhuyzen, Christopher S. Simpson and Hoshiar Abdollah

The authors are from the Division of Cardiology (Arrhythmia Service), Queen's University, Kingston, Ont.

Correspondence to: Dr. George D. Veenhuyzen, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Queen's University, Fraser Armstrong Patient Centre 319, 76 Stuart St., Kingston ON K7L 2V7

Abstract

ATRIAL FIBRILLATION (AF) is the most common sustained dysrhythmia in adults. It is ironic, then, that although mechanisms and effective treatments for most other supraventricular tachyarrhythmias have been discovered, AF remains incompletely understood and poorly treated. Nonetheless, our understanding of the pathophysiology of AF has improved in the last half-century, including some groundbreaking observations made in the last 10 years. Indeed, for some patients, the potential for cure now appears to be available. Because no unifying mechanism of AF has been proven, the aim of this review is to describe some of the common and important concepts behind current mechanistic theories of AF and how they contribute to our clinical understanding of AF.