Advanced age, hypertension, a high body mass index and the absence of diabetes are all associated with a greater chance of developing atrial fibrillation (AFib) after an embolic stroke of undetermined source (ESUS), according to new data published in Circulation.
For the RE-SPECT ESUS trial, researchers evaluated ESUS patients aged 60 or older who were treated at one of 564 sites in 42 countries. All patients received care from December 2014 to January 2018.
Researchers found that, out of 5,390 patients, 7.5% developed AFib within a median follow-up period of 19 months. Patients diagnosed with AFib tended to be women, present at an older age and have a history of coronary artery disease, hypertension or renal impairment.
In addition, in an analysis of 1,117 patients with baseline N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) measurements, older age and elevated NT-proBNP were independent predictors of AFib.
“An important finding of our study is the value of NT-proBNP to predict AFib in this population of patients with ESUS,” wrote lead author Maria Cecilia Bahit, MD, with INECO Neurociencias in Argentina, and colleagues.
These findings, the authors wrote, "could help identify a population of patients who are at higher risk of developing AFib and may benefit from prolonged cardiac monitoring."
Read the full study here.