The Role of Atrial Fibrillation in Sepsis

Sepsis is one of the most common situations where atrial fibrillation happens in hospitalized patients. Sepsis increases the risk of having new onset atrial f rhythm by about sevenfold as opposed to any other diagnosis in the hospital. In terms of why it's happening, there's a lot of different pathways that lead to atrial f arrhythmias during sepsis. Patients are on beta agonists with norepinephrine have high sympathetic tone being acutely ill. They can have electrolyte disturbances and acute kidney injury inflammation.