In brief , female atrial fibrillation patients more commonly present comorbidities , leading to a higher prevalence of persistent atrial fibrillation ; moreover , they refer to hospital care later and with a longer disease history .
Atrial fibrillation symptoms relate to low quality of life in female patients ; in fact , atrial fibrillation paroxysm usually presents higher heart rate , leading to preferentially adopt a rate rather than a rhythm-control strategy .
Female atrial fibrillation patients present an increased risk of stroke , worsened by the lower  oral anticoagulant prescription rate related to the concomitant higher haemorrhagic risk profile .
Trans-catheter ablation is under-used in female patients and , on the contrary , they are more commonly affected by anti-arrhythmic drug side effects
Atrial fibrillation is the most common supraventricular arrhythmia .
Its prevalence increases with age and preferentially affects male patients .
Over 75 years of age , however , female patients being more prevalent , the absolute number of patients affected is similar between sexes .
Despite this , few data are available in the literature concerning sex-related differences in atrial fibrillation patients .
The present systematic review therefore considers comorbidities , referring symptoms , quality of life , pharmacological approaches  and  trans-catheter ablation  in female rather than in male atrial fibrillation patients in search of parameters that may have an impact on the treatment outcome .
Impact of gender on the prognosis of patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation.
Treatment guidelines for atrial fibrillation ( AF ) used in Western countries describe female gender as a risk factor for thromboembolic events in patients with nonvalvular AF ( NVAF ) . The present study aim ed to determine the impact of gender on prognosis of Japanese patients with NVAF . A sub analysis of 7,406 patients with NVAF ( mean age 70 years ) who were followed-up prospect ively for 2 years was performed using data from the J-RHYTHM registry . The primary end points were thromboembolic events , major hemorrhaging , total mortality , and cardiovascular mortality . Compared with male subjects ( n = 5,241 ) , female subjects ( n = 2,165 ) were older and displayed greater prevalences of paroxysmal AF , heart failure , and hypertension but less prevalences of diabetes , previous cerebral infa rct ion , and coronary artery disease . Male and female patients had mean CHADS2 ( Congestive heart failure , Hypertension , Age of 75 years or more , Diabetes mellitus and prior Stroke or transient ischemic attack ) scores of 1.6 and 1.8 , respectively ( p < 0.001 ) . Warfarin was given to 87 % of male patients and 86 % of female patients ( p = 0.760 ) , and the 2 genders displayed similar mean international normalized ratio of prothrombin time values at baseline ( 1.91 vs 1.90 , respectively , p = 0.756 ) . Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that male gender was an independent risk factor for major hemorrhaging ( odds ratio 1.59 , 95 % confidence interval 1.05 to 2.40 , p = 0.027 ) and all-cause mortality ( odds ratio 1.78 , 95 % confidence interval 1.25 to 2.55 , p < 0.002 ) but not for thromboembolic events ( odds ratio 1.24 , 95 % confidence interval 0.83 to 1.86 , p = 0.297 ) or cardiovascular mortality ( odds ratio 0.96 , 95 % confidence interval 0.56 to 1.66 , p = 0.893 ) . In conclusion , female gender is not a risk factor for thromboembolic events among Japanese patients with NVAF who were treated mostly with warfarin . However , male gender is a risk factor for major hemorrhaging and all-cause mortality
In brief , female atrial fibrillation patients more commonly present comorbidities , leading to a higher prevalence of persistent atrial fibrillation ; moreover , they refer to hospital care later and with a longer disease history .
Atrial fibrillation symptoms relate to low quality of life in female patients ; in fact , atrial fibrillation paroxysm usually presents higher heart rate , leading to preferentially adopt a rate rather than a rhythm-control strategy .
Female atrial fibrillation patients present an increased risk of stroke , worsened by the lower  oral anticoagulant prescription rate related to the concomitant higher haemorrhagic risk profile .
Trans-catheter ablation is under-used in female patients and , on the contrary , they are more commonly affected by anti-arrhythmic drug side effects
Atrial fibrillation is the most common supraventricular arrhythmia .
Its prevalence increases with age and preferentially affects male patients .
Over 75 years of age , however , female patients being more prevalent , the absolute number of patients affected is similar between sexes .
Despite this , few data are available in the literature concerning sex-related differences in atrial fibrillation patients .
The present systematic review therefore considers comorbidities , referring symptoms , quality of life , pharmacological approaches  and  trans-catheter ablation  in female rather than in male atrial fibrillation patients in search of parameters that may have an impact on the treatment outcome .