Ventricular arrhythmias and cardiac arrest in atrial fibrillation patients with pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators.

BACKGROUND

Atrial fibrillation (AF) has been linked to ventricular arrhythmias (VAs) and sudden death, but few studies have specifically explored this association.

OBJECTIVE

We investigated whether AF is associated with an increased risk of ventricular tachycardia (VT), ventricular fibrillation (VF) and cardiac arrests (CA) in patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs).

METHODS

All patients with pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) hospitalised between 2010 and 2020 were identified from the French National database. Patients with a prior history of VT/VF/CA were excluded.

RESULTS

701,195 patients were identified initially. After excluding 55,688 patients, 581,781 (90.1%) and 63,726 (9.9%) remained in the pacemaker and ICD groups respectively. 248,046 (42.6%) pacemaker patients had AF and 333,735 (57.4%) had no AF, whereas in the ICD group 20,965 (32.9%) had AF and 42,761 (67.1%) had no AF. The incidence of VT/VF/CA was higher in AF patients compared to non-AF patients both in pacemaker (1.47%/year vs. 0.94%/year) and ICD (5.30%/year vs. 4.21%/year) groups. After multivariable analysis, AF was independently associated with an increased risk of VT/VF/CA in pacemaker (HR 1.236 [95% CI 1.198-1.276]) and ICD (HR 1.167 [95% CI 1.111-1.226]) patients. This risk was still significant in the 1:1 propensity score-matched analysis of the pacemaker (n = 200,977 per subgroup) and ICD cohorts (n = 18,349 per subgroup), HR 1.230 [95% CI 1.187-1.274] and HR 1.134 [95% CI 1.071-1.200] respectively and in the competing risk analysis (pacemaker: HR 1.195 (95% CI 1.154-1.238], ICD: HR 1.094 [95% CI 1.034-1.157]).

CONCLUSION

CIED patients with AF have a higher risk of VT/VF/CA compared to CIED patients without AF.