Introduction: Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) is a frequent complication of severe cardiovascular (CV) diseases like heart failure (HF) and coronary artery disease (CAD). They can be pointed out by the presence of certain symptoms associated with an acute episode, sometimes during initial diagnosis, requiring hospita-lization for further investigations.
Objectives: Identifying and evaluating the associated symptoms with the acute episode, which required ho-spitalization of a group of patients with recurrent PAF, and the way in which they correlate with pre-existent CV diseases, EKG and echographic changes.
Methods: A retrospective study on a group of 61 pa-tients, hospitalized for an episode of recurrent PAF in the Cardiology Clinic of SCU „Sf. Pantelimon” Bucha-rest, between 23.04.2015 and 22.06.2016. Demographi-cal, clinical, anamnestic and paraclinical data regarding the acute episode were collected for all patients.
Results: The average age was 70 years. Female patients constitute the majority (72.13%). The most frequent symptoms associated with the acute episode, were pal-pitations, dyspnea and angina (71.13%, 62.29% and 44.26%). From CV diseases, HF was the most fre-quently associated (50.81%), followed by CAD and stroke (13.11%, 42.62%). Statistically significant to the history of HF was dyspnea (p=0.05); to the history of CAD, dyspnea (p=0.04), angina (p=0.07) and vertigo (p=0.08); to the history of stroke, angina (p=0.06), fati-gue (p=0.04) and vertigo (p=0.06). On admission, the EKG showed that 54.10% of patients had signs of ische-mia and 26.22% had disorders of the electrical conduc-tion system. Angina and syncope were historically sig-nificant (p=0.03 and p=0.06) to disorders of the electri-cal conduction system; fatigue (p=0.05) to the signs of ischemia. Echocardiographic tests concluded that the majority (54.09%) had a preserved LVEF; 40.98% had left ventricle hypertrophy; 22.95% had an LA ≥40 mm. No significant correlations between echography para-meters and symptoms have been found.
Conclusions: Recurrent PAF, that requires hospitali-zation, was predominantly associated with symptoms like dyspnea, angina, palpitations and syncope, these in turn being statistically significant correlated with EKG appearance and pre-existent CV diseases. No signifi-cant correlations between echography parameters and symptoms have been found within the group.