Additional Data on Atrial Fibrillation from ELSA-Brasil Study

Atrial fibrillation is currently recognized as a medical condition associated with clinically relevant symptoms, worse prognosis, and increased medical costs. Atrial fibrillation does not seem to be a homogenous disease but presents significant variability in terms of epidemiology, clinical presentation, risk factors, access to treatment, and prognosis. Understanding regional, social, and ethnic variations is thus of paramount importance.

It is estimated that more than 33 million individuals worldwide are affected with atrial fibrillation, and the prevalence is expected to grow as the population of individuals aged 65-year-old or older will almost double from 12% in 2010 to an estimated 22% in 2040. This will probably bring additional burden for cardiovascular disease and atrial fibrillation. It has been argued that this health and economic burden might be concentrated in low- and middle-income countries. In this sense, available data suggests that the atrial fibrillation burden in Brazil is at least equivalent to that seen in other countries.

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