Stroke rates vary substantially across cohorts of patients with atrial fibrillation

Commentary on: Quinn GRSeverdija ONChang Y. Wide variation in reported rates of stroke across cohorts of patients with atrial fibrillation. Circulation 2017;135:208–19. Context Oral anticoagulants (OACs) substantially reduce stroke risk in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF); however, they remain globally underused.1 One of the main reasons is the difficulty in stratifying AF-related ischaemic stroke risk at the individual patient level.1 2 Among scores stratifying AF-related stroke risk, CHA2-DS2-Vasc prevails in most recent international AF guidelines.3 4 Still, it remains unknown whether AF-related stroke risk is stable across regions, international cohorts or within specific CHA2-DS2-Vasc score strata. Methods This systematic review included only studies reporting ischaemic stroke rates for patients with AF not on OACs, and assessed the annual stroke risk among prospective versus retrospective cohort studies and clinical trials. Cohort study quality and heterogeneity were...
Source: Evidence-Based Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: EBM Prognosis Source Type: research