Atrial fibrillation is a risk marker for worse in-hospital and long-term outcome in patients with peripheral artery disease

ObjectivesTo investigate the relevance of atrial fibrillation or flutter (AF) for outcome of patients who are hospitalized for peripheral artery disease (PAD) and/or critical limb ischemia (CLI).Methods and resultsWe compared baseline data, co-morbidities, procedural data as well as in-hospital and long-term outcome of 41,882 patients who were hospitalized with PAD or CLI between 2009 and 2011 according to whether they did or did not have atrial fibrillation/flutter. Follow-up was available until December 2012. Of these, 5622 patients (13.4%) had AF. AF patients were significantly older (78 ± 9 vs. 70 ± 11 years) and had significantly more comorbidities, such as diabetes (40.8 vs. 31.1%), chronic kidney disease (40.1 vs. 19.0%), coronary artery disease (38.0 vs. 23.0%) and chronic heart failure (26.9 vs. 7.2%, each p < 0.001). They had more advanced PAD as shown by higher Rutherford classes. In-hospital complications including acute renal failure, myocardial infarction, stroke sepsis and death occurred significantly more often (each p < 0.001). Duration of hospital stay was significantly longer and costs were markedly higher in patients with AF (each p < 0.001). Using multivariate Cox regression analyses regarding long-term outcomes, AF was an independent predictor for death (HRR 1.46; 95% CI 1.39-1.52, p < 0.001), ischemic stroke (HRR 1.63; 95% CI 1.44-1.85) and amputation (HRR 1.14; 95% CI 1.07-1.21).ConclusionPresence of AF in patients admitted for PAD and CLI is associated with worse in-hospital and long-term outcome than in patients without AF. This effect was independent of numerous other comorbidities and stage of vascular disease.