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

ObjectiveRecent 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.MethodsPubMed, 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.ResultsSeven 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%, PConclusionsCKD 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.