Mitral regurgitation is the most common valvular insufficiency causing left atrial enlargement, and these horses are at more risk of developing AF, she says. "Such horses are considered similar to what they call lone AF in humans, which is AF in an otherwise healthy heart." Reef also sees horses that have AF associated with underlying structural disease. "We see a broad spectrum of horses with AF, including a young racehorse that has no other cardiac disease that we can detect but has acute onset of AF," says Virginia Reef, DVM, DACVIM, University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center. (Photo courtesy of Laura Faulker, VMD, New Bolton Center.)Īlthough AF often develops in horses with advanced structural heart disease-particularly in horses with valvular insufficiency that results in atrial dilatation-horses often develop this arrhythmia with minimal or no detectable signs of heart disease. An ECG tracing showing atrial fibrillation, characterized by a lack of P waves, irregular R-to-R intervals and undulating baseline F waves.
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