Growing evidence suggests a consistent association between atrial fibrillation (AF) and cognitive impairment and dementia that is independent of clinical stroke. This report from the AF-SCREEN International Collaboration summarizes the evidence linking AF to cognitive impairment and dementia. It provides guidance on the investigation and management of dementia in patients with AF on the basis of best available evidence. The document also addresses suspected pathophysiologic mechanisms and identifies knowledge gaps for future research. Whereas AF and dementia share numerous risk factors, the association appears to be independent of these variables. Nevertheless, the evidence remains inconclusive regarding a direct causal effect. Several pathophysiologic mechanisms have been proposed, some of which are potentially amenable to early intervention, including cerebral microinfarction, AF-related cerebral hypoperfusion, inflammation, microhemorrhage, brain atrophy, and systemic atherosclerotic vascular disease. The mitigating role of oral anticoagulation in specific subgroups (eg, low stroke risk, short duration or silent AF, after successful AF ablation, or atrial cardiopathy) and the effect of rhythm versus rate control strategies remain unknown. Likewise, screening for AF (in cognitively normal or cognitively impaired patients) and screening for cognitive impairment in patients with AF are debated. The pathophysiology of dementia and therapeutic strategies to reduce cognitive impairment warrant further investigation in individuals with AF. Cognition should be evaluated in future AF studies and integrated with patient-specific outcome priorities and patient preferences. Further large-scale prospective studies and randomized trials are needed to establish whether AF is a risk factor for cognitive impairment, to investigate strategies to prevent dementia, and to determine whether screening for unknown AF followed by targeted therapy might prevent or reduce cognitive impairment and dementia.

Aspirin is recommended in patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease for secondary prevention. In patients without atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and not at high 10-year risk, there is no evidence aspirin reduces adverse cardiovascular events and it could increase bleeding. The 2019 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Guidelines on Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease state that aspirin may be considered for primary prevention (class IIb) in patients 40 to 70 years that are at higher risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and that routine use of aspirin should be avoided (class III:Harm) for patients >70 years. We examined the frequency of patients on aspirin for primary prevention that would have been considered unindicated or potentially harmful per the recent guideline where aspirin discontinuation may be beneficial.

Little is known about the relationship between social determinants of health (SDH) and medication adherence among Medicaid beneficiaries with hypertension.

Severe maternal morbidity is rising, yet the association with cardiovascular disease is not clear. We examined the risk of cardiovascular hospitalization up to 3 decades after having a pregnancy complicated by severe maternal morbidity.

A contextual understanding of hypertension control can inform population health management strategies to mitigate cardiovascular disease events. This retrospective cohort study links neighborhood-level data with patients' health records to describe racial/ethnic differences in uncontrolled hypertension and determine if and to what extent these differences are mediated by neighborhood socioeconomic status (nSES).

Recent reports on challenges in resuscitation care at hospitals severely affected by the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic raise questions about how the pandemic affected outcomes for in-hospital cardiac arrest throughout the United States.

The Fine-Gray subdistribution hazard model is frequently used in the cardiovascular literature to estimate subject-specific probabilities of the occurrence of an event of interest over time in the presence of competing risks. A little-known limitation of this approach is that, for some subjects and for some time points, the sum of the subject-specific probabilities for the different event types (eg, cardiovascular and noncardiovascular death) can exceed one.

An aging population and improved cancer survivorship have increased the number of individuals with treated malignancy who develop advanced heart failure. The benefits of heart transplantation (HT) in patients with a pretransplant malignancy (PTM) must be balanced against risks of posttransplant malignancy in the setting of immunosuppression.

Understanding the effect of lifestyle and genetic risk on the lifetime risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) is important to improving public health initiatives. Our objective was to quantify remaining lifetime risk and years free of CHD according to polygenic risk and the American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7 (LS7) guidelines in a population-based cohort study.

Insight in differences in patient outcomes between endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) centers can help to improve stroke care. We assessed between-center variation in functional outcome of patients with acute ischemic stroke who were treated with EVT. We analyzed to what extent this variation may be explained by modifiable center characteristics.