title: Incidence and prevalence of atrial fibrillation: an analysis based on 8.3 million patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Based on an analysis of claims-based data of 8.298 million members of two German statutory health insurance funds, the aim of this contribution is to quantify age-/gender-specific prevalence/incidence of atrial fibrillation (AF) in a German setting.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients were classified as AF prevalent, if they had received at least two outpatient diagnoses of AF (ICD10-Code I48.1-) in two different quarters of the year and/or had received at least one main AF diagnosis during inpatient treatment between 1 January 2007 and 12 December 2008. They were considered to have had new onset AF in 2008 under the following conditions; first, there was no AF diagnosis in 2007; secondly, patients had not received oral anticoagulant medication in 2007; and thirdly, patients had received either one inpatient/two outpatient diagnoses of AF in 2008. In our sample, a total of 176 891 patients had AF. AF prevalence was 2.132%. The average age of these AF patients was 73.1 years, and 55.5% (98 190 patients) were male. The incidence of AF in our sample was 4.358 cases/1000 person-years in men and 3.868 cases/1000 person-years in women.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A comparison of the distribution of AF prevalence/incidence in our population with that in already published studies showed that our figures were higher, especially in the age groups above 70 years. Our data show that in a large industrial nation such as Germany care provision structures are going to be challenged by a requirement to treat more AF patients in the future.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Pharmakoökonomie und Arzneimittellogistik (IPAM), University of Wismar, PF 1210, 23952 Wismar, Germany. Thomas.wilke@hs-wismar.de
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wilke
authors.forename: Antje
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Groth
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mueller
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pfannkuche
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Verheyen
authors.forename: Roland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Linder
authors.forename: Ulf
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Maywald
authors.forename: Rupert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bauersachs
authors.forename: Günter
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Breithardt
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001281:Atrial Fibrillation / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult