Does 30-day noninvasive ambulatory ECG monitoring improve the detection of atrial fibrillation in patients ≥55 years with recent cryptogenic stroke or TIA compared to short-duration monitoring?
In patients ≥55 years with recent cryptogenic stroke or TIA, 30-day ambulatory ECG monitoring significantly increases the detection of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and subsequent anticoagulant use compared to standard short-duration monitoring.
Among patients with a recent cryptogenic stroke or TIA who were 55 years of age or older, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation was common. Noninvasive ambulatory ECG monitoring for a target of 30 days significantly improved the detection of atrial fibrillation by a factor of more than five and nearly doubled the rate of anticoagulant treatment, as compared with the standard practice of short-duration ECG monitoring. (Funded by the Canadian Stroke Network and others; EMBRACE ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00846924.).
Gladstone et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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