The following is a summary of “Obese patients with new onset atrial fibrillation/flutter have higher risk of hospitalization, cardioversions, and ablations,” published in the April 2024 issue of Cardiology by Norton et al.
For a long time, being overweight has been linked to atrial fibrillation (AF) and atrial flutter (AFL). However, the correlation between the two has been unclear.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to evaluate the connection between obesity and healthcare resource requirements in people with AF/AFL.
They identified patients with AF/AFL in 2017 and 2018 using MarketScan® database and International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision ICD-10 codes. Patients were later classified according to obesity status and followed for two years, at which all point data was censored. Cox proportional hazards regression models assessed the aHR for obese versus non-obese patients.
The results showed that there were 55,271 newly diagnosed patients, with 78.4% (43,314) being non-obese and 21.6% (11,957) being obese. Most of the patients in both non-obese (65.3% vs 34.7%) and obese (62.4% vs 37.7%) groups were males. The average age (SD) of patients in the non-obese (54.5 ± 9.7) and obese (54.7 ± 8.4) groups was similar. Obese patients had a higher incidence of emergency department visits (6.5% vs. 4.0%), hospitalizations (10.7% vs. 5.5%), cardioversions (12.7% vs. 6.6%), and ablation procedures (8.6% vs. 5.3%).
Investigators concluded that newly diagnosed patients with AF/AFL who are obese tend to utilize more healthcare resources than those who are not obese.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666602224000181
