{"id":627570,"date":"2026-09-17T14:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627570\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T14:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:50:16","slug":"finacaf-stroke-risk-lower-in-afl-only-vs-afib-only-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627570\/","title":{"rendered":"FinACAF: Stroke Risk Lower in AFL-Only vs. AFib-Only Patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patients with atrial flutter only (AFL-only) had a 40% lower risk of ischemic stroke than those with atrial fibrillation only (AFib-only), based on results from the FinACAF study<\/a> published Sept. 3 in EHJ.<\/p>\n

The nationwide retrospective cohort study included 40,986 Finnish adults with new-onset AFib\/AFL and available electrocardiogram recordings: 30,261 with AFib-only, 2,409 with AFL-only and 8,316 with AFib\/AFL. Their mean age was 72 years and about half were women. Median baseline CHA2DS2-VA scores were 3 in the AFib-only and AFib\/AFL groups and 2 in the AFL-only group.<\/p>\n

Over a median follow-up of 1.2 years, anticoagulation was started in 78% of patients, including direct oral anticoagulation in 25% of the AFib-only group, 31% of the AFL-only group and 24% of the AFib\/AFL group. Catheter ablation was performed in 2%, 7% and 6% of patients, respectively.<\/p>\n

Overall, 8% of patients experienced an ischemic stroke, with the highest crude rate in the AFib\/AFL group (2.1 per 100 patient-years), followed by the AFib-only (1.9 per 100 patient-years) and AFL-only groups (1.1 per 100 patient-years).<\/p>\n

After adjustment, the ischemic stroke incidence rate ratio was lower in the AFL-only group (0.60) and slightly higher in the AFib\/AFL group (1.11), compared with the AFib-only group. The authors suggest the lower risk in AFL-only may reflect more preserved atrial function, higher left atrial appendage emptying velocities, differences in arrhythmia burden and less structural remodeling. Findings were consistent across CHA2DS2-VA scores and among patients without anticoagulation or catheter ablation.<\/p>\n

The investigators, led by Hermon Eyob Fesseha, MD, write that non-anticoagulated patients with AFL-only and a CHA2DS2-VA score of 1 have an annual stroke risk of 0.7%, “which falls below the threshold at which anticoagulant therapy is typically considered to provide a meaningful net benefit.” By contrast, non-anticoagulated AFL-only patients with a CHA2DS2-VA score of 2 had an annual stroke risk of 1.6%, “indicating ‘moderate’ stroke risk according to the [ACC\/AHA] guideline on [AFib] management<\/a> and supporting the potential benefit of anticoagulation in this group.”\u00a0 They state these findings highlight “a potential need to re-evaluate anticoagulation strategies, particularly for patients with AFL-only and a CHA2DS2-VA score of 1.”<\/p>\n


\n Keywords:
\n Atrial Flutter, Atrial Fibrillation, Atrial Function, Ischemic Stroke, Electrocardiography, Anticoagulants, Electrophysiology \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patients with atrial flutter only (AFL-only) had a 40% lower risk of ischemic stroke than those with atrial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":["post-627570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}