2019 Volume 39 Issue 2 Pages 101-108
The number of patients with asymptomatic and transient atrial fibrillation（AF）has recently increased, and some of these cases are found to have extensive cerebral embolism of sudden onset. Therefore, the usefulness of performing 24-hour Holter electrocardiograms obtained from routine medical offices for the discovery of AF was investigated. Among a total of 2,041 cases, AF was observed in 333 cases（16.3％）and compared with 330 non-AF cases. In male and high-aged patients with AF, hypertension and congestive heart failure ware significantly higher than in patients without AF. Only 31％ of cases have been diagnosed as AF before, but more than twice as many were found to have asymptomatic or paroxysmal type by this monitoring. Anticoagulant therapy was prescribed in only 9.3％ of cases, but Holter monitoring showed that this medication was needed in 24.6％ of cases. In this manner, 24-hour Holter monitoring was found to be useful for the detection of silent and transient type AF as well as anticoagulant-required AF.
