Correlation between peripheral blood inflammatory factors and quality of life in patients with atrial fibrillation

Abstract

Objective To investigate the quality of life in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and to analyze its correlation with peripheral blood inflammatory factors. Methods A total of 258 patients with new-onset non-valvular AF who were admitted to the Department of Cardiology of the First Affiliated Hospital of Army Medical University from December 2013 to July 2015 were enrolled consecutively. The peripheral blood inflammatory factors, including C-reactive protein (CRP), albumin (ALB) and D-dimer, and platele to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and lymphocyte to monocyte ratio (LMR) were detected and calculated at admission. Atrial Fibrillation Effect on Quality of Life (AFEQT) questionnaire was adopted to assess the quality of life of these patients. Spearman correlation and partial correlation were used to analyze the correlation between peripheral blood inflammatory factors and quality of life. Results The correlation between the overall quality of life score and baseline variables such as age, gender, educational level, smoking, drinking, taking statins, history of hypertension or diabetes was statistically significant among the 230 patients who completed the questionaire about quality of life (P < 0.05). Spearman correlation analysis showed that D-dimer was negatively correlated with symptom scores (P < 0.05), and D-dimer and NLR were negatively while LMR positively correlated with daily activity scores and overall scores (P < 0.05). After adjustiment of confounders, the partial correlation analysis represented a negative correlation between D-dimer and daily activity scores in the patients (r=-0.136, P=0.044). Conclusion Elevated D-dimer level suggests lower ability to perform daily activities in AF patients, and may affect their quality of life.

Keywords

• atrial fibrillation
• quality of life
• inflammatory factors
• d-dimer