Epidemiology of Atrial Fibrillation

[MarkS]

There's a good article here:

medscape.com/viewarticle/89...

discussing the incidence and possible causes of AF. On page 4, the 2nd para is worth reading where it proposes that there is such a thing as a diseased left atrium which may or may not cause AF, and it's this that causes strokes. This may explain that once you've had AF, you will always be at stroke risk. That's even if you have an ablation, which only fixes the AF and not the diseased atrium.