Holter-electrocardiogram-monitoring in patients with acute ischaemic stroke (Find-AFRANDOMISED): an open-label randomised controlled trial

Publication date: Available online 8 February 2017 Source:The Lancet Neurology Author(s): Rolf Wachter, Klaus Gröschel, Götz Gelbrich, Gerhard F Hamann, Pawel Kermer, Jan Liman, Joachim Seegers, Katrin Wasser, Anna Schulte, Falko Jürries, Anna Messerschmid, Nico Behnke, Sonja Gröschel, Timo Uphaus, Anne Grings, Tugba Ibis, Sven Klimpe, Michaela Wagner-Heck, Magdalena Arnold, Evgeny Protsenko, Peter U Heuschmann, David Conen, Mark Weber-Krüger Background Atrial fibrillation is a major risk factor for recurrent ischaemic stroke, but often remains undiagnosed in patients who have had an acute ischaemic stroke. Enhanced and prolonged Holter-electrocardiogram-monitoring might increase detection of atrial fibrillation. We therefore investigated whether enhanced and prolonged rhythm monitoring was better for detection of atrial fibrillation than standard care procedures in patients with acute ischaemic stroke. Methods Find-AFRANDOMISED is an open-label randomised study done at four centres in Germany. We recruited patients with acute ischaemic stroke (symptoms for 7 days or less) aged 60 years or older presenting with sinus rhythm and without history of atrial fibrillation. Patients were included irrespective of the suspected cause of stroke, unless they had a severe ipsilateral carotid or intracranial artery stenosis, which were the exclusion criteria. We used a computer-generated allocation sequence to randomly assign patients in a 1:1 ratio with per...
Source: The Lancet Neurology - Category: Neurology Source Type: research