IMR Press / RCM / Volume 22 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.31083/j.rcm2204127
Open Access Review
Atrial fibrillation in Middle Eastern Arabs and South Asians: a scoping review
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1 College of Medicine, QU Health, Qatar University, 2713 Doha, Qatar
2 Adult Cardiology, Hamad Medical Corporation, 3050 Doha, Qatar
3 Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, NY 61319, USA
4 Pharmacy Department, Heart Hospital, Hamad Medical Corporation, 3050 Doha, Qatar
5 Peninsula School of Dentistry, University of Plymouth, PL4 8AA Plymouth, UK
6 South West Cardiothoracic Centre, University Hospitals Plymouth, PL6 8DH Plymouth, UK
*Correspondence: dramarsalam@yahoo.com; Amar.Salam@qu.edu.qa; ams2046@qatar-med.cornell.edu (Amar M Salam)
Academic Editors: Brian Tomlinson and Takatoshi Kasai
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2021, 22(4), 1185–1196; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm2204127
Submitted: 15 August 2021 | Revised: 3 September 2021 | Accepted: 10 September 2021 | Published: 22 December 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue State-of-the-Art Cardiovascular Medicine in Asia 2021)
Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Abstract

Most of the published literature on Atrial fibrillation (AF) originates from the northern hemisphere and mainly involves Caucasian patients, with limited studies in certain ethnicities and races. This scoping review was conducted to collect and summarize the pertinent evidence from the published scientific literature on AF in South Asians and Middle Eastern Arabs. MEDLINE, Embase and CENTRAL databases were included in our search. After screening 8995 records, 55 studies were selected; 42 from the Middle East and 13 from South Asia. Characteristics of the included studies were tabulated, and their data were summarized for study design, setting, enrolment period, sample size, demographics, prevalence or incidence of AF, co-morbidities, risk factors, AF types and symptoms, management, outcomes, and risk determinants. Identified literature gaps included a paucity of community or population-based studies that are representative of these two ethnicities/races. In addition, studies that addressed ethnic/racial in-equality and access to treatment were lacking. Our study underscores the urgent need to study cardiovascular disorders, particularly AF, in South Asians and Middle Eastern Arabs as well as in other less represented ethnicities and races.

Keywords
Arabs
Atrial fibrillation
Middle East
Scoping review
South Asians
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