Supraventricular Premature Beats and Short Atrial Runs Predict Atrial Fibrillation in Continuously Monitored Patients With Cryptogenic Stroke

Background and Purpose—Supraventricular premature beats (SPBs) may help to assess the risk of atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients with cryptogenic stroke and therefore guide therapy. Methods—An internal loop recorder was implanted in consecutive patients with acute cryptogenic stroke. The occurrence and quantity of SPBs and short supraventricular runs (SVRs) in 24-hour ECG in patients with and without future AF were analyzed. We evaluated the relative risk of the upper quartile of SPB and SVR patients against the remainder and used binary logistic regression to evaluate a possible independent influence of SPBs and SVRs on AF occurrence. Results—Twelve of 70 included patients (mean age, 59±13 years) experienced development of AF during a mean monitoring duration of 536±212 days. Patients with AF had a median of 22.8 SPBs/h versus 1.2 SPBs/h (P 14.1/h) and SVRs (>0.2/h) demonstra...