Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia which is associated with an
enhanced risk of stroke and mortality [
[1]
]. Oral anticoagulants (OACs) decrease the risk of thromboembolic stroke by 66% and
death by 27% [
[2]
]. Direct oral anticoagulant drugs (DOACs) are a new class of drugs proven to be at
least as efficacious as vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) in the prevention of thromboembolic
events in large randomized controlled trials in patients with non valvular AF (NVAF).
Their safety, as measured by the rate of bleeding complications, is not clearly superior
to that of VKAs, but the ominous occurrence of intracerebral bleeding is significantly
reduced by all DOACs [
[3]
].Keywords
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References
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- Risk profiles and antithrombotic treatment of patients newly diagnosed with atrial fibrillarion at risk of stroke: perspectives from the international, observational, prospective GARFIELD Registry.PLoS One. 2013; 8e63479
- Management of atrial fibrillation in seven European countries after the publication of the 2010 ESC guidelines on atrial fibrillation. Primary results of the PREvention oF thromboembolic event - European Registry in Atrial Fibrillation (PREFER in AF).Europace. 2014; 16: 6-14
Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 02, 2017
Accepted:
April 24,
2017
Received:
April 20,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
