NPPB and atrial fibrillation: A cohort study by Chao et al demonstrated that patients with atrial fibrillation receiving rate-control treatment with beta-blockers had a 24% lower risk of mortality compared with those with different or no rate-control treatments.12 In our cohort, those with atrial fibrillation may well have developed the symptoms and had the rise in the NT-proBNP purely because of the atrial fibrillation.