Atrial Fibrillation in Kidney Failure: Challenges in Risk Assessment and Anticoagulation Management

Management of atrial fibrillation (AF) is a clinical conundrum in people with kidney failure. Stroke risk is disproportionately high, but clinicians have a limited armamentarium to improve outcomes in this population in whom there is a concurrently high bleeding risk. Direct oral anticoagulants may have a superior benefit-risk profile compared with vitamin K antagonists in people on hemodialysis. Although research has predominantly focused on identifying a safe and effective oral anticoagulation option to reduce stroke risk in people with kidney failure (and predominantly those on hemodialysis), it remains uncertain how clinicians discriminate between people who would derive net clinical benefit as opposed to net harm. The recommended CHA₂DS_2-VASc score cutoffs provide poor discriminatory value, and there is an urgent need to identify robust markers of thromboembolic risk in kidney failure. There is increasing data to challenge the prior dogma of risk equivalence across AF type, and the American Heart Association highlights moving beyond AF as a binary entity to consider the prognostic significance of AF burden. Implantable cardiac monitor studies reveal high rates and varied burden of subclinical and paroxysmal AF in people on hemodialysis. The association between AF burden and the proarrhythmic environment of hemodialysis with cyclical volume loading, offloading, and electrolyte changes is not well studied. We review the significance of AF burden as a contributor to thromboembolic risk, its potential as the missing link in risk assessment, and updated evidence for anticoagulation in people with kidney failure.