Knowing the level of kidney function and the presence of proteinuria may improve risk levels for decision making about 
the use of antithrombotic therapy for stroke prevention in Atrial Fibrillation (AF), according to an article in American Heart Association Journal March 2009.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD), defined as reduced glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and/or proteinuria, markedly increases the risk for cardiovascular events in the general population. Chronic kidney disease is a major cardiovascular risk factor, but whether it independently increases the risk for ischemic stroke in persons with AF is unknown, according to the article.
Alan S. Go, MD and colleagues from the Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, Oakland; Departments of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Medicine, University of California at San Francisco; and Clinical Epidemiology Unit, General Medicine Division, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston tried to explore how this condition (reduced GFR and proteinuria) affects the risk of thromboembolism off anticoagulation in patients with AF.
To did this, they examined the independent effect of 2 measures of CKD, reduced glomerular filtration rate and proteinuria, on the risk of thromboembolism off anticoagulation therapy in a large cohort of adults with nonvalvular AF as they described in this article.
In the result the researchers found that a lower level of GFR was associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke and other systemic embolism of known risk factors in AF. Evaluation for both level of GFR and proteinuria is important in decision making to use antithrombotic therapy to prevent stroke in patients with AF.
Why would kidney dysfunction increase the risk of stroke in AF? Find the answer in complete read of Chronic Kidney Disease and Ischemic Stroke in Relation with Atrial Fibrillation all 8 pages of PDF Format (source: circ.ahajournals.org). There were another Journal of Heart/Cardiology you may browse.
