Atrial fibrillation prevalence, incidence and risk of stroke and all-cause death among Chinese

Chien, Kuo-Liong; Su, Ta-Chen; Hsu, Hsiu-Ching; Chang, Wei-Tien; Chen, Pei-Chung; Chen, Ming-Fong; Lee, Yuan-Teh

doi:10.1016/j.ijcard.2008.10.045

« Previous Next »International Journal of Cardiology
Volume 139, Issue 2 , Pages 173-180, 4 March 2010

Atrial fibrillation prevalence, incidence and risk of stroke and all-cause death among Chinese☆

Kuo-Liong Chien
- The Institute of Preventive Medicine, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan
Ta-Chen Su
- Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan
Hsiu-Ching Hsu
- Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan
Wei-Tien Chang
- Department of Emergency Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan
Pei-Chung Chen
- Institute of Environmental Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
Ming-Fong Chen
- Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan
Yuan-Teh Lee
- Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taiwan
- Corresponding author. Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, 100, Taiwan. Tel.: +886 2 2356 2910; fax: +886 2 2392 0456.

Received 1 May 2008; received in revised form 15 July 2008; accepted 12 October 2008. published online 01 December 2008.

Abstract

Background

We investigated atrial fibrillation (AF) prevalence, incidence and the risk of stroke and all-cause death because little is known about AF risk among ethnic Chinese.

Methods

We conducted a community-based prospective cohort study among 3560 participants. Prevalent and incident AF was documented by using the 12-lead ECG in baseline and serial follow-ups, and the stroke and all-cause death events were ascertained.

Results

Overall prevalence rates of AF in the cohort were 1.4% in men and 0.7% in women. Incidence rates of AF were 1.68 per 1000 person-years for men and 0.76 per 1000 person-years for women. During a median 13.8 years' follow-up, we documented 208 cases of stroke and 776 deaths. As compared with those without AF, participants with AF had nearly 4 times the age, gender-adjusted risk of stroke (relative risk [RR], 3.87, 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.12–7.15), and twice the risk of death associated with all causes (RR, 2.23, 95% CI, 1.52–3.27). Further adjustment for body mass index, lifestyle factors, socioeconomic status and clinical diseases slightly attenuated these risks. In addition, after adjusting for echocardiographic measures, the following risks remained significant: the multivariate RRs were 2.90 (95% CI, 1.28–6.59) for risk of stroke and 2.05 (95% CI, 1.27–3.32) for risk of all-cause death among participants with AF.