Could this lead to save money and, more importantly, lives?

Lately, we've seen discussions, debates and heated arguments about health care costs.

And we've know, too, that atrial fibrillation is a major stroke risk.

Now, those two problems merge as a study shows that hospital costs of stroke patients rise in presence of afib:

Photo from U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention

"Overall, Afib increased the hospital costs of patients with ischemic stroke substantially across all age and sex groups," medical economist Guijing Wang, PhD, and colleagues from the CDC's Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention wrote online in Stroke.

The findings suggest the need for studies evaluating the cost effectiveness of interventions to reduce the incidence of Afib, which is associated with a four- to five-fold increased risk for stroke, Wang told MedPage Today.

"We know that in older populations it may be too late to prevent Afib, so these interventions should start in younger adults," he said, adding that his research team plans to study the cost impact of such interventions.

So, interventions early for afib could not only reduce stroke risk, but reduce costs, which eventually benefits everyone. This research bears watching.