Moderately-to-severely reduced eGFR is associated with increased all-cause mortality risk in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), specifically among those with lower socioeconomic status (SES), according to a study published in Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine. Researchers examined 968 patients admitted for AF. Patients were classified according to eGFR at admission into eGFR-0 to e-GFR-3 (normal to severely decreased eGFR) categories. More than 39% of patients had chronic kidney disease; 319 had moderately decreased eGFR and 67 had severely decreased eGFR. The risk for all-cause death was increased in the eGFR-2 and eGFR-3 groups after multivariate adjustment and relative to the eGFR-0 group (HRs, 2.416 and 4.752, respectively); risk was not increased in the eGFR-1 group. The researchers noted that 34.8% of patients died during follow-up. Moderately to-severely decreased eGFR had a significant effect on all-cause mortality only in patients with low SES in a subgroup analysis. “The main clinical relevance of this study is that clinicians should pay special attention to [patients with AF] who present with modifiable factors that correlate with low SES,” the researchers wrote.
