Medscape January 27, 2026
A new study has found that wearable technology may be catching up to, or in some ways surpassing, standard care for cardiac event detection.
The EQUAL trial, which was recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, showed smartwatches equipped with photoplethysmography (PPG) and ECG proved better at detecting episodes of new-onset atrial fibrillation.
“One of the most striking findings was the approximately four-fold increase in atrial fibrillation detection compared with standard care. Importantly, a large proportion of these newly detected episodes consisted of paroxysmal and asymptomatic atrial fibrillation, which are well known to be challenging to identify with conventional, short-duration rhythm monitoring,” Nicole J. van Steijn, MD, first author, and Michiel M. Winter, MD, PhD, principal...
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