A study of clinical blood test parameters as potential predictors of atrial fibrillation

AIM: To evaluate the relationship of inflammatory parameters and calculated inflammatory indices obtained from clinical blood test with the presence of atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective analysis of the data of 5,041 patients aged 18 to 99 years was conducted. A group of 470 patients without AF, comparable in age, gender, and presence of cardiovascular diseases to a group of 470 patients with AF, was selected using propensity score matching. The groups were compared by key parameters of clinical blood test and calculated inflammatory indices. For the parameters that showed significant differences when comparing groups, optimal thresholds were determined using ROC analysis. To assess the predictive ability of inflammatory parameters, a logistic regression analysis with the calculation of the odds ratio of the presence of AF was applied. RESULTS: When comparing the groups, the following parameters showed significant differences: the number of neutrophils, monocytes, immature granulocytes, and most inflammatory indices were significantly higher, while the number of lymphocytes and the LMR index were significantly lower in the AF group. The most significant predictors were SIRI values of more than 1.3 and LMR values of more than 4.84 (the odds of AF according to multivariate logistic analysis increased by 2.13 times and decreased by 2.27 times, respectively). CONCLUSION: Biomarkers of chronic systemic inflammation were associated with the presence of AF regardless of gender, age, and concomitant diseases. Thus, markers of systemic inflammation detected in routine blood tests have the potential to be used as predictors of the presence of AF.