CLINICAL PROFILE OF PATIENTS HOSPITALIZED FOR PAROXYSMAL

ATRIAL FIBRILLATION
Introduction Assessment of cardiovascular risk factors, demographic and clinical
characteristics in a group of hospitalized patients for an episode of paroxysmal
atrial fibrillation (AF), first diagnosed or recurrent. Identification of characteristics.
Methods: We retrospectively examined data derived from 104 patients who were
hospitalized for a paroxysmal atrial fibrillation episode in the Cardiology
Department of the “St. Pantelimon” Emergency Hospital,over a 1-year and 2
months period, from 23.04.2015 to 22.06.2016. Different data were collected and
evaluated (e.g. clinical and anamnesis) by review of records. We identified their
characteristics and the correlations between them.
Rezults: We included 104 patients with a median age of 70.3 years, the majority
of subjects were in the eighth decade of life; 68% were female. Arterial
hypertension was the most common cardiovascular risk factor (79.8%), followed
by dyslipidemia (48.07%) and obesity (31.73%). Congestive heart failure (CHF)
was the most common pre-existing cardiovascular disease (50%), followed by
coronary artery disease (CAD) (37.5%) and stroke (11.5%); we found statistically
significant differences between the two types of paroxysmal AF , recurrent or first
diagnosed (p = 0.07). The dominant symptoms were palpitations (65.38%),
dyspnea (56.73%) and angina (44.23%). Age group above 65 years old was
statistically significant(SS) associated with palpitations (p = 0.006) and fatigue (p
= 0.05); age group under 65 years old with angina (p = 0.03); history of CAD was
SS associated with dyspnea (p = 0.04) and angina (p <0.01); history of stroke
was SS associated with vertigo (p = 0.03); history of CHF with dyspnea (p
<0.01). 66.4% patients had a CHA2DS2-VASc score of more than 3 points and
22.2% had a HAS-BLED score more than 3 points.
Conclusions: Female sex predominates in paroxysmal AF. The most common
risk factor was arterial hypertension. There was a significantly higher percentage
of patients with preexisting cardiovascular diseases, most of them had CHF, with
SS differences in relation to the type of paroxysmal AF. Dyspnea, angina and
syncope were the dominant symptoms and / or SS associated with age and
cardiovascular disease. A high percentage of hospitalized patients had a
CHA2DS2-VASc score of> 3points; the majority of patients had a HAS-BLED
score of <3 points.