Cardiac arrhythmias in non-cardiac critically ill patients

Abstract

Aim of the work: To evaluate the incidence and types of cardiac arrhythmias in non-cardiac critically ill patients admitted to the general ICU and the relation of arrhythmias to different comorbidities and patient outcomes. Patients and methods: prospective study on 72 non-cardiac critically ill patients admitted to the general intensive care unit of Critical Care Department of Fayoum University Hospital from May 2015 to November 2016 presenting with different causes of admission. Results: 136 episodes of arrhythmias occurred in all of the studied patients, the most frequent was sinus tachycardia as it occurred in 72 non-cardiac patients in the form (30.15 % of attacks were sinus tachycardia) followed by 22.97% for atrial extrasystoles, 14.71% for ventricular extrasystole, 9.56% for SVT, 9.56% for AF, 8.09% for MAT. Sinus tachycardia was the most common to occur and mortality incidence was 34.7% among the study group. Conclusion: Supraventricular arrhythmias were more common to occur in non-cardiac critically ill patients than ventricular arrhythmias. Patient with AF developed in the setting of critical illness carries higher propensity to mortality