Stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation: State of the art

Stroke prevention is the cornerstone of the management of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Individual stroke risk stratification is generally the first step of deciding whether oral anticoagulation (OAC) will benefit patients with AF. Given that existing approaches to the prediction of ‘high risk’ subjects are of limited value, the initial focus should be the identification of ‘low-risk’ patients who do not need antithrombotic therapy. For this, the CHA2DS2-VASc score (congestive heart failure, hypertension, age ≥ 75 [2 points], diabetes mellitus, previous stroke/tra nsient ischemic attack [2 points], vascular disease, age 65–74, female sex) performs well in identifying really low-risk patients (score of 0 in males or 1 in females), for whom OAC can be omitted.
Source: International Journal of Cardiology - Category: Cardiology Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research