Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common persistent arrhythmia in clinical practice. In the United States, there are approximately 2.3 million patients with AF, which will increase to 5.6 million by 2050; there are approximately 400,000 hospitalizations due to AF each year. In Europe, there are approximately 6 million patients with AF, and the Rotterdam cohort study also showed that the lifetime prevalence of AF in people over 55 years of age was 22.2% to 23.8%. The prevalence of atrial fibrillation in the general population is 0.4-1%, and the prevalence of atrial fibrillation increases with age; the prevalence of atrial fibrillation before the age of 55 years is 0.1%, and the prevalence of atrial fibrillation in people over the age of 80 years is about 10%. Epidemiologic data on atrial fibrillation in China show that the prevalence of atrial fibrillation in China is 0.77%, with a higher prevalence in men (0.9%) than in women (0.7%), and it is estimated that the number of atrial fibrillation patients in the whole country is more than 10 million. From an epidemiologic point of view, atrial fibrillation mainly occurs in the elderly with organic heart disease, and the yearly increase in the incidence of atrial fibrillation in recent years may be related to the aging of the population and the increase in the survival rate of patients with heart failure and myocardial infarction. A small number of patients with atrial fibrillation are not accompanied by any organic heart disease, called isolated atrial fibrillation. Data from the Framingham study showed that the risk of atrial fibrillation after adjustment for age and risk factors was 1.5 times higher in men than in women. Other well-defined cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity are also important independent risk factors for AF. After further adjustment for the above risk factors, heart failure, valvular heart disease, and myocardial infarction significantly increased the risk of AF. Cardiac ultrasound markers that predict the occurrence of AF include left atrial enlargement, left ventricular wall thickness, left ventricular short-axis shortening rate, and mitral annular calcification. Recently identified risk factors for AF include vascular compliance, atherosclerosis, insulin resistance, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Hazards and prognosis of atrial fibrillation In addition to inducing or exacerbating heart failure, atrial fibrillation can cause stroke and other thromboembolic events, which can increase total and cardiovascular mortality by a factor of two.The ALFA study showed that about two-thirds of the risk of death in patients with atrial fibrillation was related to cardiovascular disease.The Framingham study showed that atrial fibrillation often coexisted with and interacted with heart failure, and the prevalence of atrial fibrillation in heart failure patients was 54/1000 person-years. The incidence of atrial fibrillation in patients with heart failure was 54/1000 person-years, while the incidence of heart failure in atrial fibrillation was 33/1000 person-years. In several large clinical trials of heart failure, AF was the strongest independent risk factor for death and the presence of other comorbidities, and the COMET study also showed that new onset of AF during the follow-up period was an independent risk factor for increased mortality. The most serious complication of atrial fibrillation is thromboembolism, especially stroke. Overseas data show that the annual incidence of atrial fibrillation-associated strokes is 4.5%; about 15% of strokes are directly related to atrial fibrillation; about 75,000-100,000 strokes in the United States are atrial fibrillation-associated thromboembolisms each year; the risk of atrial fibrillation-induced strokes increases with age from 1.5% in the 50-59 age group to 1.5% in the 80-89 age group. The risk of stroke due to AF increases with age, from 1.5% in the 50-59 age group to 23.5% in the 80-89 age group, and AF is the leading cause of stroke for those older than 80 years. A retrospective survey of hospitalized cases of atrial fibrillation in some regions of China showed that the prevalence of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation was 17.5%, and a case-control study of stroke in atrial fibrillation conducted by Hu Daiyi et al. in 18 hospitals across the country showed that the prevalence of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation in China was 24.8%. In addition, strokes caused by atrial fibrillation are more serious than atherosclerotic strokes, with a higher mortality rate, longer hospitalization time, and more severe residual limb dysfunction. In the past, paroxysmal AF was thought to be more likely to lead to thromboembolism than chronic AF, but the Framingham study showed that the risk of embolism from chronic AF was comparable to that of paroxysmal AF. A pooled analysis from five randomized clinical trials also showed that paroxysmal AF had a similar risk of stroke as chronic AF. Stroke accounts for 80% of thromboembolic complications of AF, and in addition, AF can lead to embolism in other parts of the physical circulation, with the risk of peripheral arterial thromboembolism in patients with AF being 4-5.7 times higher than that of patients with non-atrial fibrillation. The most common of these is thromboembolism of the arteries of the limbs, especially the lower limbs, half of which are in the iliac arterial segments. In addition, mesenteric artery embolism, pelvic artery embolism, and renal artery embolism can lead to ischemic necrosis of the organs supplying blood. In addition to this, atrial fibrillation can lead to a significant decrease in the quality of life of the patient, and quality of life surveys of patients with atrial fibrillation have shown significant decreases in quality of life scores when compared to healthy controls. Atrial fibrillation is a major public health problem that we are currently facing, and its prevalence is increasing, which can lead to serious complications and increased mortality. There is no drug with certain efficacy for the prevention of atrial fibrillation, and due to the possible side effects of long-term application of anti-arrhythmic drugs and the high recurrence rate of atrial fibrillation, there is an urgent need to explore new methods and measures for the prevention and treatment of atrial fibrillation, and catheter ablation therapy is the new hope for the eradication of atrial fibrillation at present.