Introduction
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia, occurring in 5% to 10% of patients with myocardial infarction (MI).1–3 Approximately one in five strokes are caused by AF, although most AF-related strokes can be prevented with oral anticoagulants (OAC).4 5 The major hazard associated with OAC is bleeding, the risk of which is substantially increased when OAC is combined with antiplatelet therapy after MI.6
AF is a well-established risk factor associated with considerable morbidity and mortality after MI.3 7 Patients with a history of prior MI and concomitant AF comprise an important group at heightened risk for cardiovascular events, including hospitalisations for heart failure, bleeding and mortality. Characteristics and outcomes of stable patients with prevalent or incident AF after recovery from MI are not well described. We therefore sought to describe characteristics, quality-of-life (QoL) measures, treatment patterns and clinical outcomes of patients with prevalent or incident AF following MI using data from the TIGRIS (long Term rIsk, clinical manaGement and healthcare Resource utilization of stable coronary artery dISease) registry, which includes a unique international population with MI 1–3 years before enrolment.8