Medical News: Atrial Fibrillation Predicts Poor Outcome in Diabetes – in Cardiovascular, Diabetes from MedPage Today

Among the findings:

• Over 4.3 years of follow-up, 879 patients died and 53% of those deaths were from cardiovascular causes
• 15% of the deaths occurred in patients with atrial fibrillation
• Atrial fibrillation was associated with a 77% risk of cardiovascular death (P<0.0001) and a 68% increase in risk of death from heart failure (P=0.0002) over the course of the study
• Atrial fibrillation was associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke (P=0.0006)
• 26% of patients with atrial fibrillation at baseline were on anticoagulant therapy
• Among patients taking oral anticoagulant therapy at baseline, the “adjusted HRs associated with [atrial fibrillation] were 2.16 (95% CI 1.15 to 4.07; P=0.02) and 2.32 (95% CI 1.06 to 5.12, P=0.04) for all-cause mortality and cardiovascular death, respectively.”