Weather and Triggering Ventricular Arrhythmias in Patients with Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators

Abstract

Outdoor ambient weather has been hypothesized to be responsible for the seasonal distribution of cardiac arrhythmias. Because people spend most of their time indoors, we hypothesized that weather-related arrhythmia risk would be better estimated using an indoor measure or an outdoor measure that correlates well with indoor conditions, such as absolute humidity. The clinical records of 203 patients in eastern Massachusetts, USA, with an implantable cardioverterdefibrillator were abstracted for arrhythmias between 1995 and 2002. We used case-crossover methods to examine the association between weather and ventricular arrhythmia (VA). Among 84 patients who experienced 787 VAs, lower estimated indoor temperature (odds ratio (OR) = 1.16, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.05-1.27 for a 1 °C decrease in the 24-h average) and lower absolute humidity (OR = 1.06, 95% CI 1.03-1.08 for a 0.5 g/m 3 decrease in the 96-h average) were associated with increased risk. Lower outdoor temperature increased risk only in warmer months, likely attributable to the poor correlation between outdoor and indoor temperature during cooler months. These results suggest that lower temperature and drier air are associated with increased risk of VA onset among implantable cardioverter-defibrillator patients.ICDs record the onset date and time of arrhythmic events and the associated electrocardiograms (ECGs), which allows for subsequent objective review of the detected cardiac arrhythmias. Using ICD records of the date and time of arrhythmic events, we examined the association between weather and ventricular tachyarrhythmias among patients Nguyen et al.