2014 AHA/ACC/HRS Guideline for the Management of Patients with Atrial Fibrillation

March 28, 2014 – The goal of this guideline is to establish revised recommendations for optimum management of atrial fibrillation. The guideline supersedes the 2006 ACC/AHA/ESC Guideline for the Management of Patients with Atrial Fibrillation and the two subsequent focused updates from 2011.

This guideline of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines and the Heart Rhythm Society, developed in collaboration with the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, establishes revised guidance for optimum management of atrial fibrillation (AF).

The new guideline incorporates new and existing knowledge derived from published clinical trials, basic science, and comprehensive review articles, along with evolving treatment strategies and new drugs.  In addition, the ACC/AHA, American College of Physicians, and American Academy of Family Physicians submitted a proposal to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to perform a systematic review on specific questions related to the treatment of AF. The data from that report were reviewed by the writing committee and incorporated where appropriate.

The 2014 AF guideline is organized thematically with recommendations, where appropriate, provided with each section. Some recommendations from earlier guidelines have been eliminated or updated, as warranted by new evidence or a better understanding of earlier evidence.

See also 2019 AHA/ACC/HRS Focused Update of the 2014 AHA/ACC/HRS Guideline for the Management of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation.

 See 2019 AHA/ACC/HRS Focused Update the scope of which includes revisions to the section on anticoagulant (because of the approval of new medications and thromboembolism protection devices), revisions to the section on catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF), revisions to the section on the management of AF complicating acute coronary syndrome (ACS), and new sections on device detection of AF and weight loss.