Relationship Between Radiation Exposure and Incident Atrial Fibrillation Among Atomic Bomb Survivors

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common arrhythmia. Although radiation exposure is associated with an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease, the effects of radiation on arrhythmia, especially AF, are unclear. We evaluated the relationship between radiation and AF in a cohort of atomic bomb survivors. Methods and Results: From a baseline enrollment period (1967–1969) to 2009, 7,379 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors (mean baseline age 50.6 years, 65.8% women, 72.9% from Hiroshima) without AF and who had been exposed to estimated radiation doses between 0 and 3.614 Gy were followed-up once every 2 years. AF was identified by 12-lead electrocardiograms and medical records. Treating age as the time scale, AF incidence was modeled with Cox proportional hazards models adjusting for demographics, AF risk factors, and radiation. We modeled radiation as both a continuous variable and categorized according to radiation dose (Control [<0.005 Gy] and 5 equal-sized groups based on radiation dose quintiles in the cohort). Over 4 decades of follow-up, we identified 276 AF cases in 176,687 person-years, for an incidence rate of 1.56 per 1,000 person-years. After adjusting for sex and city, neither categorized, linear, nor linear-quadratic models showed substantive evidence of radiation effects. Similar results were obtained after adjusting for AF risk factors. Conclusions: There were no clear positive associations between radiation dose and AF risk, rather null or non-significant inverse associations.