The most frequent location of stroke was the right sided circulation,
and the most commonly affected vessel was the middle cerebral artery
(MCA), comprising 47.8% and 47.3% respectively of all strokes.
Multiple acute ischemic lesions tended to be more frequent in those with
AF detected vs without AF (16.0% vs 9.1% NS). Forty percent of the
patients had a prior stroke, and there was a trend towards higher
prevalence of AF (50% vs 38.2%, p=0.288). A history of coronary artery
disease (CAD) was present in 29.6% of those with detected AF vs 14.7%
in those without detected AF (p=0.094). There was no significant
difference in CHA2DS2VASc and ASCVD 10-year risk between the two groups.
On univariate analysis (Table 2) age, cholesterol, not-being on a
dihydropyridine calcium-channel blocker, and coronary artery disease
were the only variables with a p value ≤ 0.1, but none of the variables
achieved a p value <0.05. A multivariate model including these
variables demonstrated that being on CCB decreased the odds of having AF
(OR 0.086, 95% CI: 0.016-0.464, p 0.004) and a history of coronary
artery disease (OR 4.7, 95% CI: 1.266-17.659, p=0.021) and higher
cholesterol levels (OR 1.013, 95% CI: 1.001-1.025, p=0.033) increased
the odds of having AF in this population. Advancing age slightly
increased the odds of detection but this result was not statistically
significant (p=0.078).