We studied a unique population from a large public hospital that serves an ethnically diverse and underserved population. Our cohort had greater race and age diversity than other population studies.
Table 1 presents the characteristics of the cohort. Age, gender, and race status were available in 99.9% of the cohort. The four preselected racial groups (Caucasian, Hispanic, African-American, and Asian) comprised 97% of the cohort. Nearly 60% of the subjects were Hispanic. The mean age (SD) of the cohort was 62.3 (15.1) years. Nearly 28% [...]
Population
Records of patients with electrocardiogram (ECG) diagnosis of AF were examined from LAC+USC Medical Center’s Marquette ECG database for the 1999 calendar year. This ECG database included records of both inpatients and outpatients. The automatically interpreted ECGs generated for that calendar year were previously reviewed, corrected when necessary, and confirmed by the hospital’s cardiologists. Of [...]
INTRODUCTION
Atrial fibrillation is being increasingly recognized as an important clinical entity in regards to morbidity, mortality, and patient care costs. Since the risk of AF is associated with advancing age, the aging of the population of the United States will likely be associated with increased prevalence of AF with its accompanying medical and socioeconomic factors. [...]
