- The top three research areas for this month comprise a total of 8 publications on the circulatory system, 4 publications on the influencing health and health-care providing services, and 4 publications on infection and parasites. These findings have been published in “Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine & Frontiers in Psychiatry &Medicine (Baltimore)”
- Selected Paper in November：Adults with congenital heart disease with atrial fibrillation had higher risk of ischemic stroke.
As the opportunities for heart examinations increase, the prevalence of congenital heart disease among adults is gradually rising. However, it is not yet clear whether adults with congenital heart disease have a higher risk of ischemic stroke when experiencing atrial fibrillation. The team from Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (Linkou Branch) conducted a follow-up observation by utilizing the Taiwan National Health Insurance claims database, collecting data from 36,530 cases of adults diagnosed with congenital heart disease from the years 2000 to 2010.
The results showed that adults with congenital heart disease have a 4.7 to 15.3 times higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation than the general population. Additionally, the incidence of ischemic stroke triggered by congenital heart disease in elderly individuals is approximately 1.46 times higher than in those under 50 years old without concomitant atrial fibrillation. In clinical practice, atrial fibrillation scoring systems are commonly used to estimate the risk of ischemic stroke, serving as a reference for preventive treatment. This research found that even among patients with lower scores (0-1), the incidence of ischemic stroke remains approximately 1.47% higher than in individuals without atrial fibrillation.
The authors remind that the study has some limitations. Firstly, there were numerous ischemic stroke risk factors, such as smoking, obesity, metabolic syndrome, ventricular function, and severe valve diseases, for which information on medication dosage, particularly anticoagulant drugs, cannot be obtained from the claims data and therefore cannot be controlled for in the analysis. Secondly, there are various subcategories within congenital heart disease and atrial fibrillation, and these distinctions cannot be retrieved from the claims data.
Highlight of NOV (2023) ：This month's primary research focuses on the Atrial Fibrillation and Stroke Risk, long-term caring expenses of various mental illness, and the risk of death caused by Invasive fungal infection in liver cirrhosis.
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