Usefulness of the CHA 2 DS 2 -VASc Score to Predict the Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death and Ventricular Arrhythmias in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation.

Sudden cardiac death (SCD), the most devastating manifestation of ventricular arrhythmias (VAs), is the leading cause of mortality in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). We hypothesized that the CHA2 DS2 -VASc score, consisting of age and several clinical risk factors, could be used to estimate the individual risk of SCD/VAs for AF patients. From year 2000 to 2011, 288,181 newly-diagnosed AF patients without antecedent SCD/VAs were identified from "Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database." During the follow-up of 1,065,751 person-years, 11,166 patients experienced SCD/VAs with an annual risk of 1.05% which increased from 0.34% for patients with a CHA2 DS2 -VASc score of 0% to 2.63% for those with a score of 9. The CHA2 DS2 -VASc score was a significant predictor of SCD/VAs with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.21 (95% confidence interval 1.20 to 1.22) per 1 point increment of the score. As the CHA2 DS2 -VASc score increased from 1 to 9, the hazard ratio of SCD/VAs continuously increased from 1.28 to 4.17 compared with patients with a CHA2 DS2 -VASc score of 0. In conclusion, CHA2 DS2 -VASc score was a convenient scoring system which could be used to predict the risk of SCD/VAs in AF patients in addition to its ability for stroke risk stratification.