Postoperative atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with incident heart failure (HF) hospitalization among patients without a history of HF undergoing either cardiac or noncardiac surgery, according to a study published in the European Heart Journal. Parag Goyal, MD, and colleagues examined the association between postoperative AF and incident HF hospitalization among patients undergoing cardiac (76,536) and noncardiac (approximately 2.9 million) surgeries. Among patients who underwent cardiac surgery, 18.8% developed incident postoperative AF versus 0.8% of noncardiac surgery patients. Postoperative AF was associated with incident HF hospitalization for both those undergoing cardiac surgery (HR, 1.33) and those undergoing noncardiac surgery (HR, 2.02). Postoperative AF remained associated with incident HF hospitalization after excluding HF within 1 year of surgery (HRs, 1.15 and 1.49 for cardiac surgery and noncardiac surgery, respectively).
