Foreword: contemporary issues in the management and treatment of atrial fibrillation

This supplement represents the first publication of Thrombosis Quorum (TQ), a recently established international consortium of multidisciplinary thrombosis-related specialists dedicated to raising the priority of thrombosis. TQ aims to address the unmet clinical needs in the prevention and treatment of thromboembolic conditions, and promote the optimum management of patients with or at risk of these disorders by providing a cross-disciplinary forum for information exchange and debate. This publication incorporates a collection of state-of-the-art articles written by the TQ Steering Group and co-authors, and in this instance, focuses on the management and treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). AF is the strongest independent predictor for stroke, the leading cause of disability, and the second leading cause of death worldwide. As such, AF has become accepted as a common and rapidly growing clinical problem and disease entity, as highlighted in the first article of this series by Bernard Gersh and coworkers who describe AF as a ‘growing epidemic’ and ‘an enormous public-health burden’. Although AF is primarily a disease of the elderly, the authors suggest that in most patients, the development of AF may …