CardioExchange Archive

Although it is well known that there is a heritable component to atrial fibrillation (AF), the precise clinical significance of familial AF has been unclear. Steven Lubitz and colleagues analyzed data from the Framingham Heart Study to assess the incremental predictive value of familial AF in a risk model for new-onset AF.

In a presentation at the American Heart Association meeting in Chicago and a simultaneous online publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the authors report that familial AF was an independent risk factor and was associated with a 40% increase in the risk of developing AF. The addition of familial AF slightly increased the predictive accuracy of the risk model. Premature familial AF was the most powerful AF feature examined.

“Future efforts should attempt to discern the factors that mediate the association between familial AF and AF risk, further explore the relationships between premature familial AF and risk prediction, and determine whether incorporating genetic variants into an AF prediction model enhances its performance,” the authors concluded in their JAMA paper.