[Atrial fibrillation in 2010: an increasing morbidity and mortality burden]

AF, a frequent and banal arrhythmia, is a debilitating and costly disease. The majority of patients with AF are aged 60 to 80 years, but the prevalence is as high as 10% after 80 years and the incidence increases in recent years in an "epidemic" way. AF is responsible for an excess of mortality with an relative risk between 2 and 4 depending of age and sex, especially as cardiovascular risk factors are associated. The morbidity is also important, with cerebral systemic embolism (2-3% per year), heart failure (1 patient for 3), and a total risk of hospitalization from 20 to 30% per year for AF patients with high cardiovascular risks. Whatever be the reasons for hospitalization, cardiovascular or not, in connection with AF or not, these reasons must be well analyzed, so that the risk of occurrence of hospitalization should reflect the efficacy of anti-arrhythmic drugs, or of their complications, or of the comorbidities associated with AF, so common in these older subjects. This morbidity-mortality composite endpoint should now be used in AF randomized trials, as occurring more frequently than mortality (4% per year) or embolic or hemorrhagic usual endpoints. Medico-economic consequences are significant and AF cost is almost 1% of total health spending, with 20% to 30% of the cost for anti-arrhythmic or anti-thrombotic drugs, and 50 to 60% for hospitalizations. Prevention of hospitalizations related to atrial fibrillation may represent a therapeutic target priority on the medico-economic ground.