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In which situations do you preferentially use an MCOT in lieu of a standard event monitor?

1 Answer
Mednet MemberInvited Expert
Cardiology · Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
Answered on

In most situations where the concern for "actionable" arrhythmias is low (e.g., isolated palpitations, mild lightheadedness, AF burden, PVC burden, known persistent AF for assessment of rate control, etc.), I typically would use an extended 7-14 day Holter mostly for symptom-arrhythmia correlation since there is nothing that would warrant immediate action. In cases where there is at least a moderate level of concern for an arrhythmia-related symptom that might need urgent attention and/or intervention (e.g. post-TAVR new LBBB, other baseline conduction disease with transient lightheadedness, medication monitoring, abrupt syncope clinically with high suspicion to be arrhythmia-related, etc), an MCOT (typically 14-30 days) would be preferred so that there is close to real-time notification in order to act upon that information immediately. A standard 24/48 hour is rarely helpful for diagnosing arrhythmias since the duration of monitoring is often not long enough to capture an event.