New onset arrhythmias in critically ill medical patients- patient profile, ICU course and outcomes

Arrhythmias are common clinical events in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting. The frequency and prognosis associated with arrhythmias vary according to the clinical setting in which they occur. Arrhythmias have been reported to occur in 15.7 and 19.7 % of patients in the surgical and medical ICU settings, respectively. In one epidemiologic study of critically ill patients, it was reported to be as high as 78 %. Nevertheless, the clinical impact of many arrhythmias in the continuum of critical illness is somewhat unclear. In some studies, arrhythmias have been implicated as a marker of disease severity in critically ill patients. They have also been associated with increased length of stay in the ICU, worse clinical outcome, and increased mortality. The clinical course of patients receiving care in the medical ICU is usually complex in nature with the presence of multiple concomitant insults to target organs in the form  of renal, cardiac, and pulmonary illness. The majority of published studies evaluating the prevalence and relevance of arrhythmias in critically ill patients focus on cardiac vs. non-cardiac surgical patients, while data in the setting of a general medical ICU is less abundant. Our study is focused on medical ICU patients who develop new onset arrhythmias and is aimed to elucidate the probable causes, the type of arrhythmias, management and outcomes of these patients in terms of length of hospital stay and ICU mortality.