Major international guidelines for atrial fibrillation management generally agree but exhibit notable differences in specific recommendations for stroke prophylaxis, rate control, and rhythm management.
Clinicians must navigate regional AF guideline variations; leaves open which thresholds best balance stroke prevention and rhythm control.
New guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation (AF) have recently been published by the American College of Cardiology Foundation/American Heart Association, and Heart Rhythm Society (ACCF/AHA/HRS) task force on practice guidelines, the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS), and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Although they all refer to the same scientific data and agree in the majority of AF management, interpretation, and weighing of study results are quite different in some aspects. While recommendations for stroke risk assessment and prophylaxis are rather conservative in the ESC guidelines, the CCS guideline recommendations are more conservative with regard to lenient rate control and the ACCF/AHA/HRS recommendations are rather strict with regard to rhythm management.
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Wasmer et al. (2011) studied this question.
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