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If atrial fibrillation (AF) occurs transiently due to stress of surgery or acute medical illness, is recurrent AF more likely? In a prospective matched cohort study, Canadian investigators identified 139 patients (mean age, 71) who were hospitalized for acute medical illness or noncardiac surgery and who developed first episodes of transient AF (i.e., resolved by hospital discharge) during hospitalization. Controls were 139 age- and sex-matched patients — with no AF — from the same hospital ward.
Based on 14-day electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring at 1 and 6 months and telephone follow-up through 12 months, significantly more patients with transient AF than without transient AF had recurrent AF by 1 year (33% vs. 5%; adjusted relative risk…