Surveillance of arrhythmia in post-myocardial infarction patients using wearable ECG patch devices: a prospective cohort study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Acute myocardial infarction may be associated with new-onset arrhythmias. Myocardial infarction patients may manifest with serious arrhythmias such as ventricular tachyarrhythmias or atrial fibrillation. Frequent, prolonged electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring can prevent devastating outcomes by these arrhythmias. OBJECTIVE We investigated the incidence of arrhythmias in post-myocardial infarction patients using a patch-type device: ATP-C120. METHODS This study is a non-randomized, single-center, prospective cohort study. We evaluated 71 patients with post-myocardial infarction who had been admitted to our hospital. The ATP-C120 device was attached for 11 days and analyzed by two cardiologists for new-onset arrhythmic events. RESULTS One participant was concordantly diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. Atrial premature beats occurred in 91.5% and 84.5% of participants, and ventricular premature beats occurred in 53.5% and 62.0%, respectively. Interestingly, 56.3% of the patients showed less than 2 minutes of sustained paroxysmal atrial tachycardia. Among participants with atrial tachycardia, the use of beta blockers was significantly lower (70.0% vs. 90.3%, p=0.037). However, different dosages of beta blockers did not show significant differences. CONCLUSIONS Wearable patch ECG monitoring devices are easy to apply and can correlate symptoms and ECG rhythm disturbances among post-myocardial infarction patients. Further study is necessary regarding clinical implications and appropriate therapies for arrhythmias detected early, post-myocardial infarction, to prevent adverse outcomes.