Abstract 14972: Sub-clinical Atrial Fibrillation in Elderly Primary Care Patients Without Clinical Atrial Fibrillation

Introduction: Sub-clinical AF has been reported in 10% of pacemaker patients (≥ 6 minutes, with 3 months of monitoring) and 16% of patients following cryptogenic stroke (≥ 30 seconds, with 1 month of monitoring). It is unknown how common sub-clinical AF is among other patient groups, including the elderly. These data are needed to give context to the detection of sub-clinical AF in clinical practice. Methods: We prospectively investigated the prevalence of sub-clinical AF among individuals ≥ 80 years, without known AF or symptoms of arrhythmia, attending primary care clinics. Subjects had a history of hypertension and at least one of the following: diabetes, BMI ≥ 30, sleep apnea, smoking, coronary disease, heart failure or left ventricular hypertrophy. Patients were recruited from 7 Ontario family practice clinics (n=119) and one general medicine clinic (n=10). Patients underwent 30 days of continuous, non-invasive ambulatory ECG monitoring using a device with automatic AF detection (Vitaphone 3100). The...