Correction to: Effectiveness and safety of vitamin K antagonists and new anticoagulants in the prevention of thromboembolism in atrial fibrillation in older adults – a systematic review of reviews and the development of recommendations to reduce inappropriate prescribing

SummaryAtrial fibrillation is one of the most frequent reasons for therapeutic anticoagulation in everyday practice. Oral vitamin K antagonists such as Marcumar have been state of the art anticoagulants to prevent thrombembolic events in patients with atrial fibrillation and additional risk factors. But these drugs are accompanied by disadvantages such as increased bleeding risk and impaired quality of life caused by interactions with food or other medications as well as frequent controls of INRs.The new anticoagulants apixaban, rivaroxaban and dabigatran are direct antagonists of coagulation factors (FXa or FIIa) and demonstrate a promising risk/benefit profile in large clinical trials compared with vitamin K antagonists.Their approval for clinical use will open up new therapeutic perspectives for patients with atrial fibrillation and indication for anticoagulation.

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Abstract 12465: Dabigatran in Real World of Atrial Fibrillation: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Comparison Studies With Vitamin K Antagonists

Circulation ◽

10.1161/circ.132.suppl_3.12465 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 132 (suppl_3) ◽

Author(s):

João Carmo ◽

Francisco M Costa ◽

Jorge Ferreira ◽

Miguel Mendes

Keyword(s):

Myocardial Infarction ◽

Atrial Fibrillation ◽

Systematic Review ◽

Intracranial Hemorrhage ◽

Vitamin K ◽

Major Bleeding ◽

Real World ◽

Observational Studies ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Vitamin K Antagonists

Background: In the clinical trial RE-LY, dabigatran showed a better efficacy/safety profile in comparison with warfarin, but clinical trials are few representative of the real world. We aim to access if dabigatran in real-world patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) showed a better profile in comparison with warfarin, through a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies comparing with vitamin K antagonists. Methods: PubMed, Embase and Scopus databases were searched through December 2014. We include observational studies comparing dabigatran to warfarin for non-valvular AF that reported clinical events during a follow-up for dabigatran 75mg, 110 mg or 150 mg, and warfarin. We proceeded to the extraction and analysis of data for clinical thromboembolic events, bleeding and mortality. Data were pooled by meta-analysis using a random-effects model. Results: We selected 9 studies involving a total of 291,703 patients, 85,399 treated with dabigatran and the remaining 206,304 with warfarin. The incidence of stroke was 1.71 / 100 patient-years for dabigatran and 2.44 / 100 patient years for warfarin (relative risk [RR] 0.91, 95% CI 0.66 to 1.27, p=0.58). The major bleeding rate was 3.90 / 100 patient-years for dabigatran and 3.92 / 100 patient years for warfarin (RR 0.90; 0.78 to 1.03, p=0.11). The all-cause mortality (RR 0.81, 0.75-0.88, p<0.001) and intracranial hemorrhage (RR 0.45, from 0.27 to 0.76, p=0.002) were significantly lower in patients treated with dabigatran in comparison to those treated with warfarin. There were no significant differences in risk of myocardial infarction (RR 0.55; 0.29 to 1.07, p=0.08), total hemorrhage (RR 1.00; 0.57 to 1.77, p=0.99), and gastro-intestinal bleeding (RR 1.14; 0.78 to 1.69, p=0.50). Conclusions: In this combined analysis of observational studies of real world, dabigatran compared to warfarin was associated with a similar risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, major bleeding, total bleeding and gastrointestinal bleeding, and a lower risk of intracranial hemorrhage and mortality.

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