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Previous Volume 348:1284-1286 March 27, 2003 Number 13 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text PDF PDA Full Text Purchase this article Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited E-mail When Letters Appear Related Article by The Atrial Fibrillation Follow-up Investigation of Rhythm Management (AFFIRM) Investigators Related Article by Van Gelder, I. C. PubMed Citation

To the Editor: The authors of the recently published Atrial Fibrillation Follow-up Investigation of Rhythm Management (AFFIRM) trial (Dec. 5 issue)¹ conclude that rhythm control offers no advantage over rate control, although they saw a trend toward improved survival in the rate-control group. Because of the design of the trial, antiarrhythmic drugs were used primarily in the rhythm-control group. However, there is an important difference between the two study groups that was not addressed by the authors. The proportion of patients using beta-blocking drugs in the rhythm-control group was significantly smaller than that in the rate-control group, whether they were . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Silver, A. (2003). Rhythm control strategies were not better than rate control strategies for atrial fibrillation. Evid. Based Med. 8: 140-140 [Full Text]  
• Silver, A. (2003). Rate control was not inferior to rhythm control for recurrent persistent atrial fibrillation. Evid. Based Med. 8: 141-141 [Full Text]