Prevalence And Outcomes Among Hospitalized Patients With Covid-19 And Atrial Fibrillation Or Flutter

Introduction: The prevalence and outcomes of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 with atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter (AF/FL) remains unclear. Methods: The Yale Cardiovascular COVID Registry is a cohort study of adult patients >=18 years hospitalized with COVID-19 in the Yale New Haven Health System. Retrospective medical record review was performed on consecutive patients from the registry admitted between March and June 2020. We calculated the rates of prior and in-hospital AF/FL and evaluated the unadjusted rates of in-hospital adverse events for both groups; we then calculated the adjusted odds of adverse events using logistic regression. Results: Among 396 patients, the mean age was 68.2, 52.3% were men, 56.4% were Caucasian, 28.4% Black and 16.9% Hispanic. 15.7% of patients had prior history of AF/FL. 19.9% of patients had in-hospital AF/FL, 7.83% of which did not have a prior history of AF/FL. Patients with in-hospital AF/FL had significantly more CV complications compared to those without including cardiac injury (78.5% vs 42.7%, p=0.000), type 2 myocardial infarction (53.3 vs 30.3%, p=0.002), and heart failure (32.9% vs 9.2%, p=0.000). In-hospital AF/FL was associated with significantly worse outcomes related to COVID-19 including ICU survival (OR 0.22 [0.08-0.59], p=0.002), heart failure (5.19 [2.56-10.5], p=0.000), myocardial injury (OR 2.87 [1.49-5.49], p=0.001), acute kidney injury (OR 2.02 [1.09-3.74], p=0.027), dialysis (OR 4.07 [1.38-12.03], p=0.011) and hospice/death (OR 2.47 [1.35-4.53], p=0.004). Conclusion: AF/FL are common in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and these patients had significantly worse outcomes, including lower odds of ICU survival and higher odds of heart failure, acute kidney injury, dialysis and hospice/death.