Does new-onset atrial fibrillation independently increase the risk of death in patients hospitalized with COVID-19?
New-onset atrial fibrillation is common in hospitalized COVID-19 patients and is associated with high crude mortality, but it appears to be a marker of disease severity rather than an independent driver of death.
New-onset AF was common (5.4%) among patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Almost half of patients with new-onset AF died during their index hospitalization. After multivariable adjustment for comorbidities and disease severity, new-onset AF was not statistically significantly associated with death, suggesting that new-onset AF in these patients may primarily be a marker of other adverse clinical factors rather than an independent driver of mortality. Causality between the MACE composites and AF needs to be further evaluated.
Rosenblatt et al. (Wed,) studied this question.