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Meta-Analysis
. 2016 May 13;11(5):e0155581.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155581. eCollection 2016.

Chronic Kidney Disease and the Risk of New-Onset Atrial Fibrillation: A Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies

Weifeng Shang  1 , Lixi Li  1 , Shuai Huang  1 , Rui Zeng  1 , Liu Huang  2 , Shuwang Ge  1 , Gang Xu  1
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Chronic Kidney Disease and the Risk of New-Onset Atrial Fibrillation: A Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies

Weifeng Shang et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Objective: Recent epidemiological evidence indicates an association between chronic kidney disease (CKD) and the risk of new-onset atrial fibrillation (AF), but the results are inconclusive. This meta-analysis examined the association between CKD and new-onset AF.

Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Collaboration and the reference lists of relevant articles were searched to identify eligible studies. The random effect model was used to calculate the overall multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) with its corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI). Associations were tested in subgroups of study characteristics and study quality criteria. We also performed sensitivity analyses and assessments of publishing bias.

Results: Seven prospective cohort studies (n = 400,189 participants) were included in this meta-analysis. Pooled results suggested that CKD was associated with an increased adjusted risk estimate for new-onset AF (HR, 1.47; 95% CI, 1.21-1.78), with significant heterogeneity between these studies (I2 = 79.7%, P<0.001). Results were not different in any subgroup except sample size. Stratified analyses found that the diagnostic method of CKD and eGFR (estimated glomerular filtration rate), the number of confounders adjusted for, and study quality explained little of the variation between studies. Sensitivity analysis further demonstrated the results to be robust.

Conclusions: CKD is associated with an increased risk of incident AF. Further research is needed to investigate the biological association between CKD and AF and identify a preventive strategy to decrease the incidence of AF in CKD patients.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Flow chart of study selection.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Forest plot of comparisons: CKD (eGFR <60 ml/min/1.73 m2) versus eGFR ≥60 ml/min/1.73 m2, outcome: AF.
Abbreviations: CKD, chronic kidney disease; AF, atrial fibrillation; HR, hazard ratio; CI, confidence interval; eGFR, estimated glomerular filtration rate.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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