Continuous Cardiac Arrhythmia Monitoring in Hemodialysis Patients

Hemodialysis patients have a rate of fatal arrhythmias that is 40 times greater than the general population, but the causes and types of fatal arrhythmias they experience is unclear. The purpose of this prospective observational cohort study is to capture and characterize occult arrhythmias which occur in hemodialysis patients over a 6 month period. After informed consent and baseline assessment, 30 adult hemodialysis patients without a prior history of cardiac arrhythmias will undergo implantation of a continuous cardiac monitoring device (REVEAL, Medtronic). Three followup visits will be scheduled to download device data and quantify the number of potentially malignant arrhythmias which occur in study subjects during the 6 month period. Additionally, captured events will be monitored remotely via regular patient initiated transmission of device data every 2 weeks. Any serious occult arrhythmias detected will be immediately acted upon with a predefined management algorithm. Descriptive data and simple proportions will be used to describe the incidence and types of arrhythmias among the study cohort. Risks of this study include 1) potential loss of patient confidentiality 2) risks related to insertion of device including pocket hematoma, device infection, pain and discomfort secondary to procedure. These will be minimized by strict security measures to protect each patient's protected health information (PHI), preprocedural screening and insertion of monitoring devices by highly trained operators, and frequent careful direct patient followup.