Atrial fibrillation after surgery

Postoperative atrial fibrillation is a common supraventricular arrhythmia in the context of thoracic cardiac and non-cardiac surgery. In contrast, the incidence of this arrhythmia is very low after non-thoracic non-cardiac surgery. Common risks factor include age, male gender, history of atrial fibrillation, coronary artery disease and atrial enlargement. Inflammation, oxidative stress and surgery-induced release of catecholamines have been implicated in the physiopathology of postoperative atrial fibrillation; hence, several pharmacological interventions have been tried to reduce its incidence. To date, betablockers and amiodarone have shown the most promising benefits in terms of prophylaxis.