Daily atrial fibrillation issues: The view-point of a practicing surgeon

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is encountered daily by the cardiac surgeon. How to deal with a patient with pre existing AF who is on anticoagulation taking into account urgency, type of anticoagulation and procedure planned are some of the daily considerations encountered. When to start anticoagulation and other pharmacotherapy after the occurrence of post-op atrial fibrillation and the use of ablative therapies in view of bleeding and other complications are daily judgement calls made by surgeons. Whom to offer combined interventions are decisions the surgeon faces daily. While guidelines help in broad strokes, there is little help for individual situations which is due to structural problems and absence of universal definitions resulting in the lack of granular data needed for practical individualized daily decision making.