CardioPulse. A focused update to the ESC guidelines for the management of patients with atrial fibrillation.

‘A focused update to the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Guidelines for the management of patients with atrial fibrillation’ was presented at the ESC Congress by Task Force chair Prof. John Camm (UK) and published online on 26 August 2012 in European Heart Journal and EP-Europace. The new recommendations will also be incorporated into the 2010 version of ‘Pocket Guidelines’. The update concentrates on a few areas which are most critical in the clinical environment. The first relates to the strengthening of evidence for the identification of patients at risk for thromboembolic events related to AF. Many large data sets have been examined between 2010 and 2012 that confirm the validity of the scoring system CHA2DS2-VASc, and the Guidelines therefore reinforce the use of this stratification scheme. They also support the use of HAS-BLED for scoring the bleeding risk in patients who require anticoagulation for stroke prevention in AF.