Medtronic study shows benefits of Reveal XT cardiac monitor

Medtronic's Reveal XT Insertable Cardiac Monitor (ICM) is superior to standard care when it comes to detecting atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients who have suffered strokes for which no cause can be determined, a clinical trial has revealed.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the findings show that continuous monitoring using the Reveal ICM discovered AF in 6.4 times more patients than using standard care approaches over a six-month period.

This figure rose to 7.3 times more at 12 months and 8.8 times more at 36 months and professor Johannes Brachmann, chief of cardiology at Coburg Hospital in Coburg, Germany, said the data "further necessitates the need for us to reconsider our approach to patients with cryptogenic stroke".

He explained that continuous monitoring of heart rhythm can "help us find those stroke patients whose AF is often missed with short-term monitoring", noting the intermittent nature of AF means it is not possible to rely on symptoms when determining which patients require ECG monitoring.