VIDEO: Sleep disorders can be used to predict risk for atrial fibrillation

INDIANAPOLIS — Sleep subtyping can help identify patients at greater risk for developing atrial fibrillation, according to Catherine Heinzinger, DO, in a Healio video from SLEEP 2023.

“Atrial fibrillation is a serious health problem, and we can use sleep disorders to forecast incident atrial fibrillation or find out which patients are at risk of developing atrial fibrillation in the future,” Heinzinger, a research fellow at the Cleveland Clinic Sleep Disorder Center, said.

She and her colleagues identified five subtypes of sleep profiles in a group of more than 40,000 patients. The subtype with the longest sleep time and the most REM sleep were at the least risk for atrial fibrillation, while the subtype with the most hypoxia and the most sleepiness were at the greatest risk, she said.

Evaluating sleep factors beyond the apnea-hypopnea index can help identify patients with the greatest cardiac risk, she concluded.