Abstract
Advances in the therapy of atrial fibrillation (AF) have not come easily or quickly, despite the recognized need for significantly better antiarrhythmic agents for AF termination and prevention as well as for more user-friendly anticoagulants for the prevention of emboli in patients with AF. Rather, the road has been only slowly progressive and bumpy. This manuscript will introduce the recent issues with dronedarone, the complex development story for vernakalant, and the appearance of the new oral anticoagulants. Each of these three considerations will then be explored in more depth by the invited experts for this “mini-Thematic issue” in Current Cardiology Reviews.
Keywords: Atrial fibrillation, antiarrhythmic drugs, anticoagulants, dronedarone, vernakalant, factor Xa and direct thrombin inhibitors.
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