Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here):
Introduction / Background:

Clinical guidelines emphasize cardiac rhythm monitoring in post-stroke patients (pts) for detecting atrial fibrillation. Limited studies have evaluated other arrhythmias in this population.

Objective:

We sought to assess the prevalence and significance of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT) in pts who have had an ischemic stroke or TIA. We hypothesize that pts who have NSVT will have a higher risk of cardiovascular events and recurrent stroke than those who do not have NSVT on monitoring.

Methods:

In a large, quaternary academic health system, we evaluated 563 consecutive, post-stroke pts, who did not have a history of MI or heart failure (HF) and underwent routine, mobile cardiac outpatient monitoring (MCOT, Phillips Biotelemetry, Malvern, PA) between 2019 and 2023. We evaluated all episodes of NSVT, defined as a ventricular rhythm with a wide QRS complex for at least 3 beats and a rate faster than 100 beats per minute. We collected all NSVT episodes during the wear period. For each episode, we also collected the total duration and maximum heart rate. We also calculated the NSVT burden by summing the duration of NSVT episodes and dividing by the total monitoring time. The electronic health record was utilized to identify incident MI, heart failure and/or recurrent stroke. Cox proportional hazard models were used to determine the risk of developing a cardiovascular event across the follow-up period.

Results:

Of 563 patients, the mean duration of MCOT monitoring was 19±7 days. NSVT was observed in 113 pts (mean 1.8±2.5 episodes per patient). Compared to pts who did not have NSVT, those with NSVT were older, more likely to be male, and more likely to smoke. No differences were observed in the prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, or hyperlipidemia. After a median follow-up of 920 days [IQR 844], there were 123 cardiovascular events. Patients with NSVT had higher risk of incident HF (HR 4.7, 95% CI [1.8, 12.1]; p = 0.002), incident MI (HR 4.2, 95% CI [1.8, 10.0]; p = 0.001) or recurrent stroke (HR 2.1, 95% CI [1.2, 3.7]; p = 0.007). Among those with NSVT, a higher NSVT burden was associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular events (p=0.004).

Conclusion:

In post-stroke patients, the presence and burden of NSVT are associated with a higher risk of incident cardiovascular events and recurrent stroke. Future studies should evaluate whether NSVT is a modifiable marker of cardiovascular risk in these pts.