How often does Atrial Fibrillation lead to Heart Failure?

If you come into a clinic or hospital, medical teams are good at detecting whether you have AF or heart failure. AF can be picked up with an ECG. Heart failure can be picked up with a bedside echo scan. However, the challenge is being able to tell whether the AF is actually the cause for the heart failure. Medical teams are less good at this and  helping doctors do this better is the main aim of the AFHF study.

Different things can weaken the heart and cause heart failure. We know heart attacks, genetic conditions and viral infections of the heart muscle can do it. Abnormal heart rhythms like AF can do it too. We know this because we have seen healthy hearts become weak during AF and if you treat the AF to restore normal heart rhythm, strength can be restored to the heart.

But not always. We simply don’t know enough about how AF causes heart weakness to be able to diagnose who’s heart weakness is due to AF and who’s heart weakness is due to something else- perhaps there is undiagnosed coronary artery disease, inherited heart muscle conditions or the residual effects of an old viral infection.

It’s hard to work backwards to identify the cause but it is important. If AF is the cause for the heart weakness then it is worth pursuing medical or invasive treatments to try and achieve improved heart strength. If the AF is not the cause of your heart weakness is it worth pursuing invasive procedures to treat your AF, especially if it’s not causing you any symptoms?