• Europace · Jun 2016

    Multicenter Study Observational Study

    Peripheral arterial disease is associated with an increased risk of atrial fibrillation in the elderly.

    • William F Griffin, Taufiq Salahuddin, Wesley T O'Neal, and Elsayed Z Soliman.
    • Department of Internal Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA.
    • Europace. 2016 Jun 1; 18 (6): 794-8.

    AimsTo examine the relationship between peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and atrial fibrillation (AF) in a population-based cohort study of older adults.Methods And ResultsWe examined the relationship between PAD and AF in 5143 participants (85% white, 43% male) in the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), a longitudinal, observational study of adults aged 65 years and older. Peripheral arterial disease was defined by abnormal ankle-brachial index (ABI) values (<1.0 or >1.4). Incident AF events were ascertained by self-reported history, study electrocardiograms, and hospitalization discharge records. Cox regression was used to compute hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between PAD and AF. Over a median follow-up of 11.7 years, a total of 1521 participants developed AF. The incidence rate (per 1000 person-years) of AF was higher in those with PAD (incidence rate = 32.9, 95% CI = 29.5, 36.7) than those without PAD (incidence rate = 23.3, 95% CI = 22.0, 24.6). In a multivariate Cox regression analysis, PAD was associated with an increased risk for AF (HR = 1.52, 95% CI = 1.34, 1.72). Each 0.1 decrease in the ABI was associated with a 6% increase in the risk for AF (HR = 1.06, 95% CI = 1.02, 1.10). The associations of high (>1.4) and low (<1.0) ABI values with AF were examined separately and were in the same direction as the main result for PAD (ABI < 1.0: HR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.08, 1.42; ABI > 1.4: HR = 1.33, 95% CI = 0.95, 1.86).ConclusionThe presence of PAD should alert practitioners to the increased risk of AF. Elderly patients with PAD possibly will benefit from routine electrocardiographic screening to identify AF events.Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2015. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…