With the emergence of new technologies and drugs in treatment of atrial fibrillation, and the reports of clinical trails concerning this aspect, European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and Canadian Cardiovascular Society both have updated the guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation. Especially, the ESC published the guidelines alone in 2010, and then published the update for the guidelines alone again in 2012. Under this situation, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association only compiled and revised the recommends of the guidelines published in 2006 and in 2011. Their intention is worth pondering. This article focused on the interpretation of some contents which are closely related to clinical practice.