Teams of scientists from Toronto/Ontario in Canada and from the German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK), project site Göttingen, have tested a newly developed patch for the diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. The results of the study were published in the scientific journal „JAMA“.
According to the results, the so-called mobile rhythm patch detects the risk of atrial fibrillation ten times more frequently than conventional standard diagnostics. Since 30 million people worldwide suffer from an irregular heartbeat, the problem of undetected, silent atrial fibrillation that does not cause any symptoms is great. Symptomless atrial fibrillation puts the irregular heartbeat at risk of not being felt. However, this causes blood to clot in the atria of the heart. If a clot is then transported via the blood vessels to the brain, vessels close and a stroke (apoplexy) occurs, which is the second most common cause of death, especially among older people.
People over 75 years of age who had no symptoms but high blood pressure were selected for the multicenter, randomized study. A total of 856 people were selected from 48 German medical practices, half of whom were randomly divided into two groups. One group was tested with standard medical care while the second group received the patch with integrated ECG, for recording the heartbeat over two times two weeks. The whole thing was then evaluated and coordinated for the „SCREEN-AF“ study by the Canadian colleagues in Toronto/Hamilton. It turned out that after four weeks of recording, only two people in the control group were detected as having atrial fibrillation, while 23 participants in the patch group (which was stuck on the chest) were found to have atrial fibrillation, a form of cardiac arrhythmia. Seventy-five percent of those affected were already taking blood-thinning medications. The remaining 25 percent were unaware of their stroke risk.
To the scientists, the study results show that it is important to detect atrial fibrillation, which remains silent, preventively and early on to minimize the risk of such events. In the future, the German team will continue to seek to expand not only diagnostic options, but also therapeutic ones.
Source: Heilpraxisnet