Atrial fibrillation: a moving target.

Present atrial fibrillation research focuses on three different fields of interest: Basic research to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms leading to atrial fibrillation, epidemiological studies to learn about the time course, the risk factors and the complications of atrial fibrillation, and clinical trials to further improve existing treatment strategies and develop new ones. The focus of this manuscript was the mechanisms, the epidemiology, the diagnosis and the treatment of the arrhythmia per se. Therefore, the field of prevention of stroke and systemic embolism is mostly excluded for the purpose of this article.