Symptom status, clinical subtypes and prognosis in Middle East patients with atrial fibrillation: a report from the Gulf-SAFE registry

Abstract Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is often asymptomatic. The prognosis of asymptomatic AF is similar or worse than symptomatic AF, but there are no such data from Middle East. Method The Gulf survey of AF events (Gulf SAFE) registry is a multi-center prospective survey of AF patients from six countries (23 centers) in the Gulf Region (n=2043). We investigated the prognostic outcomes of asymptomatic AF, in relation to clinical subtypes. Result 541 (26.5%) AF patients were asymptomatic; they tended to be older, with higher prevalence of hypertension, heart failure (HF), diabetes, stroke, renal dysfunction, and higher CHADS2, CHA2DS2-VASc, and HAS-BLED scores (all p<0.05). After multivariable adjustment, asymptomatic AF was associated with higher risks of stroke/systematic embolism (SE) (odds ratio [OR] 2.18, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.10–4.34), all cause-mortality (OR 2.85 [1.90–4.28]) and the composite outcome of stroke/SE, bleeding and all-cause mortality (OR 1.74 [1.26–2.41]). Asymptomatic AF was associated with fewer admissions for AF (OR 0.53 [0.32–0.83]) and HF (OR 0.58 [0.38–0.86]). The increased risk of stroke/SE in asymptomatic AF was associated with paroxysmal AF (Figure 1; P interaction=0.028). Conclusion In this large Middle East cohort, asymptomatic AF was common, less likely hospitalized but associated with unfavorable prognosis. When AF was asymptomatic, the paroxysmal subtype had a greater association with stroke/SE. Adjusted odds ratio of clinical outcomes Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: None