Early Wearable Monitor Doubles Arrhythmia Detection After Fainting

Immediate use of a wearable heart monitor after an emergency department visit for unexplained fainting more than doubled the detection of serious arrhythmias and was associated with a halving of deaths at one year, according to the ASPIRED trial presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich. The large randomized study, simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that while the 14-day monitoring did not reduce the number of recurrent fainting episodes, it led to faster diagnoses and earlier treatment for potentially dangerous heart rhythm disorders. The trial, conducted across 45 hospitals in the United Kingdom, enrolled 2,234 adults with a mean age of 58.3 years who had visited an emergency department for syncope that remained unexplained after initial evaluation. Participants were randomly assigned within 72 hours of their visit to receive either a 14-day ambulatory ECG monitoring patch or standard care, which could include inpatient telemetry and later ambulatory monitoring. The wearable device, a small waterproof patch, continuously recorded heart rhythms during daily activities.