The refinement of risk stratification for atrial thrombus or spontaneous echo contrast in nonvalvular atrial fibrillation: Serum uric acid and left atrial diameter

Abstract

As for nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) patients with left atrial thrombus or spontaneous echo contrast (LAT/SEC), we evaluated the additional predictive value of serum uric acid (SUA) and Left atrial diameter (LAD) for CHADS2 and CHA2DS2-VASc, and explored the influence from the level of SUA and LAD to LAT/ SEC in moderate risk group. Thus, we put forward the concept of a borderline high risk group to guide clinical anticoagulant therapy in patients with NVAF. A total of 284 NVAF patients without the history of anticoagulant prior to hospitalization were enrolled. They were divided into LAT/SEC group or No LAT/SEC group according to transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). Then, we explored and compared the additional predictive value of serological and ultrasonic indexes after combining them to CHADS2/CHA2DS2-VASc. 61 patients (21.48%) had LAT/SEC. SUA and LAD were the independent risk factors of LAT/SEC. After being added with LAD and SUA, the predictive value of CHADS2 and CHA2DS2-VASc were increased much more than others. In the moderate risk group, the incidence of LAT/SEC rose significantly when SUA or LAD was higher than cut-off values. SUA and LAD enhanced the predictive ability of CHADS2 and CHA2DS2-VASc for LAT/SEC as additional factors. For patients in moderate risk group, if SUA or LAD was higher than cut-off values, the risk of thromboembolism events would rise accompanied by the elevated risk of LAT/SEC.