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Volume 349:1015-1016 September 11, 2003 Number 11 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.

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Atrial fibrillation is a common cardiac arrhythmia whose most serious clinical consequence is stroke. Described in pathological studies in the 1940s, uncoordinated atrial contractions result in sluggish blood flow and the formation of thrombus in the atrial appendage: "The immobility of the auricular walls makes them defenceless against thrombotic deposits, as a horse should be against flies without his cutaneous muscles"¹ (see Figure). The stasis-precipitated thrombi lead to emboli that are distributed according to cardiac output, but emboli to the brain account for about 80 percent of symptomatic emboli. Because they are larger on average than emboli of valvular . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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From the Department of Medicine, Division of Neurology, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio.

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