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Stroke, IschemicNCT05795842

DELTA (Detecting and Predicting Atrial Fibrillation in Post-Stroke Patients)

An observational study of Stroke, Ischemic, run by Emory University at 1 site in United States.

Recruiting

Looking for participants now. Contact the study team or a site below to ask about taking part.

Sites and contacts
Official record
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Trial summary

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is an abnormal heart rhythm. Because AF is often asymptomatic, it often remains undiagnosed in the early stages. Anticoagulant therapy greatly reduces the risks of stroke in patients diagnosed with AF. Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 55 years and older
Conditions the study is for
Stroke, Ischemic
What is being tested?
wearable wristband model and Samsung Galaxy Watch 6
Type of treatment
Medical device
How many people
500 participants
Where
1 siteUnited States
Study dates
21 Mar 2023to Dec 2028
Phase
Observational
Are there results?
Not yet: the study is under way

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 55 years and older
  • All sexes
  • No healthy volunteers
  • Adult, Older adult

Study population: Subjects 55 years of age or older, who are discharged from an index ischemic stroke, who are treated at one of the hospitals within the Emory Health Care System, and who initiate follow-up care at the Emory Stroke Clinic. The patient population should have clinically prescribed extended cardiac monitoring.

Who may be able to join

  • Adults 55 years of age or older.
  • Post-discharge with diagnostic of index ischemic stroke with uncertain cause.
  • Subject must be treated at the Emory Stroke Clinic for follow-up treatment.
  • Subject must be prescribed a clinical extended cardiac monitoring.
  • Subject or their Legal Authorized Representative (LAR) must be willing and able to provide informed consent.
  • Subject, family proxy, or caregiver must understand English and the instructions to manage and recharge the study wrist device.

Who cannot join

  • Subject is younger than 55 years of age at the time of consent.
  • No indication for clinical extended cardiac monitoring.
  • Subject, family proxy, or caregiver unable to understand English and unable to follow the instructions on how to manage and recharge the study wrist device.
  • Subject has a diagnosis of structural valve disease, endocarditis, aortic arch atheroma >3 mm, hypercoagulability, on lifelong anticoagulation, or has an active neoplastic disease
  • Subject or LAR is not willing or able to provide informed consent.

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.

United States1 site, 1 recruiting
  • Emory Clinic

    Atlanta, Georgia, 30322

    Corey Williams, 404-251-4060, corey.williams2@emory.edu

    Recruiting

Other trials in United States

About this study

Official title: Develop and Validate Machine-Learning Algorithm to Detect Atrial Fibrillation With Wearable Devices

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is an abnormal heart rhythm. Because AF is often asymptomatic, it often remains undiagnosed in the early stages. Anticoagulant therapy greatly reduces the risks of stroke in patients diagnosed with AF. However, diagnosis of AF requires long-term ambulatory monitoring procedures that are burdensome and/or expensive.

Smart devices (such as Apple or Fitbit) use light sensors (called "photoplethysmography" or PPG) and motion sensors (called "accelerometers") to continuously record biometric data, including heart rhythm. Smart devices are already widely adopted.

Read more

This study seeks to validate an investigational machine-learning software (also called "algorithms") for the long-term monitoring and detection of abnormal cardiac rhythms using biometric data collected from consumer smart devices.

The research team aims to enroll 500 subjects who are being followed after a stroke event of uncertain cause at the Emory Stroke Center. Subjects will undergo standard long-term cardiac monitoring (ECG), using FDA-approved wearable devices fitted with skin electrodes or implantable continuous recorders, and backed by FDA-approved software for abnormal rhythm detection.

Patients will wear a study-provided consumer wrist device at home, for the 30 days of ECG monitoring, 23 hours a day. At the end of the 30 days, the device data will be uploaded to a secure cloud server and will be analyzed offline using proprietary software (called "algorithms") and artificial intelligence strategies. Detection of AF events using the investigational algorithms will be compared to the results from the standard monitoring to assess their reliability. Attention will be paid to recorded motion artifacts that can affect the quality and reliability of recorded signals.

The ultimate aim is to establish that smart devices can potentially be used for monitoring purposes when used with specialized algorithms. Smart devices could offer an affordable alternative to standard-of-care cardiac monitoring.

Read the detailed description

An estimated 1.6% - 6% of the population over age 65 have undiagnosed and often asymptomatic AF. Oral anticoagulant therapy (OAC) reduces the risks of ischemic stroke by 64% and all-cause mortality by 26% for those diagnosed with AF. Hence, not proactively diagnosing and treating AF will be too great an opportunity to miss. Opportunistic AF screening is endorsed as a cost-effective way of diagnosing AF at primary care facilities and/or pharmacies using various techniques. However, the benefits, costs, and potential harms of more powerful systematic AF screening remain a matter of debate. Continuous AF monitoring is also needed to characterize AF occurrence in terms of its burden and temporal relation to symptoms. On the other hand, technologies for continuous monitoring of AF need excellent acceptability by patients. Well-established ambulatory techniques (e.g., Holter) are not suited because of their poor wearability and short monitoring duration. Techniques of implantable loop recorders have advanced significantly to support AF monitoring. However, only some patients can experience the benefits of these techniques because of their associated high costs and invasiveness. Cutaneous ECG patches are clinically used for AF monitoring, but they last for 2 to 4 weeks and are limited to a selected patient population with approved reimbursement. Consumer-facing solutions exist to provide spot-check ECG with an accuracy on par with that of clinical ECG devices, but they are not continuous and are infeasible for patients with compromised fine motor functions.

In contrast to these techniques, PPG is much better positioned for passive AF monitoring because of its strong physiological premise and the practical consideration that PPG sensors are ubiquitously available in more than 71% of consumer wearable devices. However, because PPG is ubiquitously available on mainstream wearables with companion software capable of generating AF alerts, laypeople can readily use PPG to monitor themselves and take actions without clinician guidance. An untoward consequence of this approach is the potential inappropriate utilization of healthcare resources when following up on false AF detections by potentially millions of users. Unfortunately, algorithms described in 24 published papers have not yet achieved adequate precision that can effectively combat such a risk. For example, many studies reported an accuracy of > 95% but a 5% of error is still too high for a technology that will be used by millions of people to continuously monitor AF in free-living settings.

Being tested
wearable wristband model, Samsung Galaxy Watch 6, Standard of care extended ECG monitoring
Keywords
Cardiac monitoring, Atrial Fibrillation
Medical subject headings
Ischemic Stroke, Atrial Fibrillation

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • wearable wristband modelDevice

    Also called Algorithm Device

    MOTO 360 smartwatch: is a specific consumer wearable wristband model (Motorola: MOTO 360), fitted with proprietary firmware (LifeQ) to collect continuous biometric signals, including PPG signals and 3-axis accelerometers in an ambulatory setting. The device is not a medical or diagnostic device, but rather a photoplethysmography (PPG) data collection device. PPG is a non-invasive technology that uses light to measure the change in the volume of blood beneath the skin that occurs as the heart beats. LifeQ has developed software that enables the collection of vital signs data from PPG technology.

  • Samsung Galaxy Watch 6Other

    The Samsung Galaxy Watch6 will collect study data on physiological signals with a compatible Samsung Galaxy phone S21. The Samsung Galaxy Watch6 will include various models, the difference being the size of the watch face or the analog front end of the device.

    The software device is installed on the Samsung Galaxy Watch. The app on the watch continuously records PPG and/or ECG data and transmits it. The phone app allows study staff to enter the subject ID, initiate data collection, and stop data collection sessions on the watch. It also receives and stores PPG and ECG data from the paired watch. The PPG app used in the study does not trigger irregular rhythm notifications or display rhythm classification. The data collected using the PPG app will support algorithm development.

  • Standard of care extended ECG monitoringDevice

    Participants enrolled in the study are prescribed ambulatory ECG monitoring (Mobile Cardiac Outpatient Telemetry, Biotel e-Patch, or LINQ insertable cardiac monitor). If the patient is negative for Afib during their time wearing an ECG monitoring patch, then patients may proceed with LINQ insertable cardiac monitor, as part of their standard of care. These are standard-of-care FDA-approved devices and detection software. Researchers will rely on the final ECG report to identify arrhythmic events to use as a golden standard to evaluate the algorithm findings. Specifically, the raw data will be used for establishing and getting an accurate ground truth for the algorithm.

Study groups in NCT05795842
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
AFib monitoring learning algorithmsParticipants will wear a prescribed (standard of care) ambulatory ECG monitoring (Biotel Patch or LINQ insertable cardiac monitor) and either a MOTO 360 smartwatch, fitted with proprietary firmware (LifeQ) to collect continuous biometric signals, including PPG signals and 3-axis accelerometers in an ambulatory setting or a Samsung Galaxy watch 6 paired with the Samsung Galaxy phone S21 to continuously record PPG and/or ECG data that can transmit data.
Receives: Device: wearable wristband model; Other: Samsung Galaxy Watch 6; Device: Standard of care extended ECG monitoring

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Sensitivity and specificity for detecting AF with PPG

    Sensitivity and specificity of the algorithm will be calculated at study completion

    Measured: At completion of the study up to five years

  2. The algorithm concordance index or c-index for predicting AF compared with EHR data

    The c-index is a metric to evaluate the predictions made by an algorithm. It is defined as the proportion of concordant pairs divided by the total number of possible evaluation pairs. For predicting AF with EHR data, researchers are targeting a higher c-index. Participants with a higher predicted probability of AF will have AF sooner than those with a lower predicted probability.

    Measured: At completion of the study up to five years

Secondary outcomes (3)
  1. Assess the characteristics and quality of long-term, continuous high-fidelity ambulatory photoplethysmographic (PPG) data using consumer wearable devices with PPG and accelerometers sensors.

    Research team will report signal quality (a number between [0, 1]) for reach 30-second PPG strip and report its relationship with patient mobilities (based on acc signals), time of day.

    Measured: Baseline and up to five years

  2. Effect of wrist motion and skin tone on PPG signal

    Research team will assess any cofounding effect of wrist motion and skin tone on PPG signal and on AF detection

    Measured: At completion of the study up to five years

  3. Validate atrial fibrillation (AF) pattern detection using investigational machine-learning algorithms from wearable devices in post-stroke patients.

    The investigators aim to collect and process photoplethysmographic (PPG) signals from wearable devices compared to standard-of-care ECG-based automated detection in post-stroke patients. This is not a hypothesis-driven study but rather a signal database development project with the goal to collect PPG signals and monitoring data to support the development and validation of algorithms that will be useful to detect atrial fibrillation.

    Measured: At completion of the study up to five years

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted3 Apr 2023
  2. Study start21 Mar 2023
  3. Primary completionDec 2027 (estimated)
  4. Study completionDec 2028 (estimated)

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Observational
Observational model
Case only
Time perspective
Prospective
Enrolment
500 participants (estimated)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT05795842
Sponsor's protocol ID
STUDY00004530
Other IDs
1R01HL166233-01, 2025P010026
Status last verified
Jan 2026
First submitted
21 Mar 2023
Last updated
21 Jan 2026
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
Yes
Individual data sharing
Yes: The research team plans to share de-identified individual participant data collected during the trial.

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

An observational study of Stroke, Ischemic, run by Emory University at 1 site in United States.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 6 inclusion and 5 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: looking for participants now, as of the sponsor's last update on 21 Jan 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

Contact Xiao Hu, PhD (404-712-8520, xhu40@emory.edu), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Sensitivity and specificity for detecting AF with PPG (time frame: At completion of the study up to five years). The study lists 2 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 21 Jan 2026.

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