• Kieran Brooks, Hiroyuki Yoshimura, Arturo Gonzalez-Izquierdo, Nadine Zakkak, Kishore Kukendra-Rajah, LipGregory Y HGYHLiverpool Centre for Cardiovascular Science at University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital, Liverpool, UK.Department of Clinical Medicine, Danish Center for Health Services Research, Aalb, and Rui Providencia.
• Institute of Health Informatics Research, University College London, London, UK.
• Eur. J. Clin. Invest. 2024 May 1; 54 (5): e14154e14154.

BackgroundWe investigated the association between atrial fibrillation (AF) and dementia, and its subtypes (vascular-VaD, Alzheimer, mixed and rare dementia), and identified predictors for dementia in AF patients.MethodsThe analysis was based on 183,610 patients with new-onset AF and 367,220 non-AF controls in the United Kingdom between 1998 and 2016, identified in three prospectively collected, linked electronic health records sources. Time-to-event (dementia or subtypes) analyses were performed using Cox proportional hazards and weighted Cox. Sub-analyses performed: including & censoring stroke and age (median used as cut-off).ResultsOver a median follow-up of 2.67 years (IQR .65-6.02) for AF patients and 5.84 years for non-AF patients (IQR 2.26-11.80), incidence of dementia in the AF cohort was 2.65 per 100 person-years, compared to 2.02 in the non-AF cohort. After adjustment, a significant association was observed between AF and all-cause dementia (HR = 1.38, 95% CI: 1.31-1.45), driven by a strong association with VaD (HR = 1.55, 95% CI: 1.41-1.70). AF was also associated with mixed dementia (HR = 1.26, 95% CI: 1.01-1.56), but we could not confirm an association with Alzheimer (HR = 1.05, 95% CI: .94-1.16) and rare dementia forms (HR = 1.19, 95% CI: .90-1.56). Ischemic stroke (HR = 1.40, 95% CI: 1.26-1.56), subarachnoid haemorrhage (HR = 2.08, 95% CI: 1.47-2.96), intracerebral haemorrhage (HR = 1.95, 95% CI: 1.54-2.48) and diabetes (HR = 1.32, 95% CI: 1.24-1.41) were identified as the strongest predictors of dementia in AF patients.ConclusionsAF patients have an increased risk of dementia, independent of stroke, with highest risk of VaD. Management and prevention of the identified risk factors could be crucial to reduce the increasing burden of dementia.© 2024 The Authors. European Journal of Clinical Investigation published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Stichting European Society for Clinical Investigation Journal Foundation.

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