Diagnose, monitor, and treat AF more effectively
The overall aim of AF-B-STEP is to define and quantify the burden of Atrial Fibrillation (AF), its impact on health outcomes, and its role to guide prevention, screening, and precision therapy of atrial fibrillation. To achieve this, we will describe the distribution of AF burden in different population, quantify the effects of AF burden on relevant health outcomes, and define standards for AF burden reporting in cardiac implanted electronic devices and in consumer wearable to enhance personalised care, research, and regulatory science. The results of AF-B-STEP have the potential to reduce the AF-related disease burden and to reduce cost of AF therapy, with positive effects on patient autonomy and experience. AF-B-STEP will also provide regulators (EMA, FDA) with the necessary data to use AF burden in their assessment of new AF therapies.
Our project’s ambition is defined by six major objectives:
Put people at the centre of the research by involving patients and the wider public throughout the project, sharing results openly, and working closely with healthcare decision-makers and payers.
Collect data to create clear insights by combining large, high-quality datasets that link heart rhythm patterns with health outcomes, enabling reliable research and practical solutions.
Understand how AF develops over time by studying patterns and changes in AF burden across different groups of people, including differences between women and men.
Clarify how AF burden affects health and daily life by determining how different levels of AF burden influence the risk of serious events, quality of life, and functional outcomes, and by identifying meaningful thresholds that can guide care.
Make AF burden information consistent and usable by developing common standards for how AF burden is measured and reported by implanted devices, wearables, and medical diagnostic tools.
Support more personalised care by identifying markers that help distinguish people with low, medium, or high AF burden, enabling better-targeted screening, monitoring, and treatment.
