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Ney Carter Borges: POAF and Long-Term Outcomes After Cardiac Surgery

Ney Carter Borges/LinkedIn

May 11, 2026, 13:48

Ney Carter Borges: POAF and Long-Term Outcomes After Cardiac Surgery

Ney Carter Borges, Member Cardiologist of Global Physician Association at Cleveland Clinic Florida, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Postoperative Atrial Fibrillation (POAF) After Cardiac Surgery.

In a large prospective, multinational cohort (VISION Cardiac Surgery; n = 12,234), new-onset postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) occurred in 31.8 percent of patients within 30 days of surgery, confirming its status as the most frequent postoperative complication.

From a prognostic standpoint, POAF was strongly associated with subsequent atrial fibrillation: 6.9 percent versus 0.6 percent, corresponding to an adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of 11.30 (95 percent CI 8.17–15.70), indicating a more than 10-fold increased risk.

Regarding hard outcomes between 30 days and 1 year:

The composite of stroke or vascular death occurred in 2.3 percent versus 1.5 percent (aHR 1.32; 95percent CI 0.99–1.77), not reaching statistical significance after adjustment.
All-cause mortality was significantly higher in POAF patients (3.0 percent versus 1.7 percent), with an aHR of 1.54 (95 percent CI 1.18–2.00).

Importantly, absolute stroke rates remained low (approximately 0.7 percent overall), suggesting that POAF may function more as a risk marker than a direct causal driver of thromboembolic events.

Therapeutic strategies were heterogeneous: only 39.4 percent of POAF patients received oral anticoagulation at discharge, while 48.8 percent were treated with amiodarone, reflecting substantial global variability in management.

Conclusion: POAF is common and clinically meaningful, conferring increased mortality and markedly higher AF recurrence, but with a modest and statistically uncertain impact on thromboembolic outcomes.

These findings highlight the need for individualized risk stratification and more standardized management strategies.”

Ney Carter Borges: POAF and Long-Term Outcomes After Cardiac Surgery