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In the past, it has been generally accepted that tachyarrhythmias other than atrial fibrillation (AF) such as atrial premature beats (APB) and atrial tachycardia (AT) are not of great clinical significance. However, with the development of detection methods in recent years, more and more clinical studies have found that the atrial ectopic activities of APB and AT except for AF are associated with the risk of stroke, and may further contribute to increased mortality. Meanwhile, a positive association has also been revealed between the frequency of this kind of atrial yarrhythmias, and incidence of adverse events such as AF and ischemic stroke, which may be mediated by subclinical atrial cardiomyopathy. There is still no clear definition of the clinical threshold for this type of arrhythmia and its excessive supraventricular ectopic activities at present. Therefore, it is essential to make regular detection and management of tachyarrhythmia other than AF by means such as ambulatory electrocardiography and by following standardized process. This article describes the relationship between such atrial arrhythmias and cardiogenic stroke, and introduces the role of detecting such arrhythmias in the assessment of cardiogenic stroke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About one third of ischemic strokes have no defined etiology, which is classified as cryptogenic stroke. It was supposed that subclinical atrial fibrillation (AF) may be related with cryptogenic stroke. Prolongation of ECG monitoring time helps to detect covert AF. However, recent studies suggested that some patients with obvious atrial structural changes and functional abnormalities are prone to suffer from atrial thromboembolism regardless of the presence of AF. These abnormal alterations of atrial substrate may show up in ECGs and become a diagnostic clue for atrial cardiomyopathy. This article reviews the advance, in the relativity between electrocardiographic markers of atrial cardiomypathy and cryptogenic stroke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]