Tag Archives: HAS-BLED

Targeting uric acid Dr Richard Crawley (Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust) The conference’s keynote lecture, delivered by Professor Austin Stack (University Hospital, Limerick, Ireland), homed in on the idea that serum uric acid directly contributes to increased cardiovascular disease. This was shown in his team’s work published in 2013,1 which used retrospective data to identify a direct correlation between raised serum uric acid concentrations and increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease. This, therefore, begs two questions: Firstly, does uric acid directly cause vascular endothelial damage, contributing to acute renal dysfunct

Introduction Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac dysrrhythmia, whose sequelae include stroke, heart failure and poor quality of life.1 In parallel with an ageing population, the prevalence of AF is increasing, with persistent or permanent forms affecting 10–15% of the population over the age of 75 years.2-6 The effective management of AF has been a source of recurring debate, leading to the publication of combined American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association/European Society of Cardiology (ACC/AHA/ESC), and National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines in 2006.7,8 In addition to evidenc

Stroke risk assessment in AF New insights on stroke risk assessment were provided by Dr Ami Banerjee (University of Birmingham), in a session supported by the Atrial Fibrillation Association. Table 1. CHADS2 score The CHADS2 risk stratification scoring system (table 1) is currently the indicator for the Quality and Outcomes (QoF) framework used to determine whether an atrial fibrillation (AF) patient warrants anticoagulation. It may underestimate risk and those with a score of zero may actually be at substantial stroke risk. He also pointed out that the system has inherent disadvantages. It does not include many of the risk factors for stroke