stable angina and chronic heart failure in sinus rhythm. According to very preliminary data, ivabradine shows heart rate lowering proprieties in non-paroxysmal AF when used alone or in association to other heart rate lowering drugs. Interestingly, studies suggest that this seems to translate into clinical benefits such as improvement of exercise tolerance and ejection fraction. However, new trials are needed to confirm the effectiveness and safety of ivabradine in nonparoxysmal AF.
INTRODUCTIONAtrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and its incidence and prevalence increase with age. Although by itself it is a non-fatal arrhythmia, it is often associated with a considerable comorbidity and an increased risk of stroke and heart failure. Patients with AF have significantly poorer quality of life than healthy controls, experiencing a variety of symptoms including lethargy, palpitations, dyspnoea, chest tightness, sleeping difficulties, and psychosocial distress [1] . These symptoms are often related to an uncontrolled ventricular rate and they can be significantly improved by the administration of drugs aimed to establish heart rate (HR) control. In the setting of non-paroxysmal AF, rate-control is an integral part of the management of AF patients as underlined by the most recent guidelines [2] . In such patients, HR control is usually obtained by using drugs which prolong atrioventricular (AV) node refractoriness such as β-blockers, nondihydropyridine calcium channel blockers, and digoxin. These drugs can be used alone or in combination for resistant AF. In clinical practice the choice of drug and target HR depends on patient characteristics and comorbidities but the decision can be particularly challenging in elderly frail subjects with multiple comorbidities. Diltiazem and verapamil may have negative inotropic effects in patients
ABSTRACTAtrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and is associated with poor quality of life and high rate of hospitalization in elderly frail patients. In patients with non-paroxysmal AF, optimizing heart rate is often the main goal but available drugs fail to reach heart rate control in about 30% of cases and this often happens because their doses can not be implemented due to side effects. Ivabradine is a pure heart rate lowering agent acting through the inhibition of If current in the sinus atrial cells, and it is widely used for patients with