Automated blood pressure monitors show promise for opportunistic atrial fibrillation detection, with all 7 studies reporting specificity >85% and 6 reporting sensitivity >90%.
Systematic Review
Do automated blood pressure monitors accurately detect atrial fibrillation during opportunistic screening?
Automated blood pressure monitors show promise as screening tools for atrial fibrillation with high sensitivity and specificity, though current studies have methodological limitations.
BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation (AF) affects around 2% of the population and early detection is beneficial, allowing patients to begin potentially life-saving anticoagulant therapies. Blood pressure (BP) monitors may offer an opportunity to screen for AF. AIM: To identify and appraise studies which report the diagnostic accuracy of automated BP monitors used for opportunistic AF detection. METHODS: A systematic search was performed of the MEDLINE, MEDLINE In-Process and EMBASE literature databases. Papers were eligible if they described primary studies of the evaluation of a BP device for AF detection, were published in a peer-reviewed journal and reported values for the sensitivity and specificity. Included studies were appraised using the QUADAS-2 tool to assess their risk of bias and applicability to opportunistic AF detection. Values for the sensitivity and specificity of AF detection were extracted from each paper and compared. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: We identified seven papers evaluating six devices from two manufacturers. Only one study scored low risk in all of the QUADAS-2 domains. All studies reported specificity >85% and 6 reported sensitivity >90%. The studies showed that BP devices with embedded algorithms for detecting arrhythmias show promise as screening tools for AF, comparing favourably with manual pulse palpation. But the studies used different methodologies and many were subject to potential bias. More studies are needed to more precisely define the sensitivity and specificity of opportunistic screening for AF during BP measurement before its clinical utility in the population of interest can be assessed fully.
Kane et al. (Fri,) conducted a systematic review in Atrial fibrillation. Automated blood pressure monitors vs. Manual pulse palpation was evaluated on Sensitivity and specificity of atrial fibrillation detection. Automated blood pressure monitors show promise for opportunistic atrial fibrillation detection, with all 7 studies reporting specificity >85% and 6 reporting sensitivity >90%.