Risk assessment in contemporary outpatients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation recently on vitamin K antagonists

Abstract

Atrial Fibrillation increases the risk of embolic stroke by five fold. Vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) are still the most used oral anticoagulants in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) and are highly effective for the prevention of thromboembolic (TE) complications in these patients. However, achieving the best benefit and safety from VKAs in the clinical practice remains a major challenge mainly because of their unpredictable anticoagulant response. In this thesis, we aimed to evaluate the quality of oral anticoagulation in a real world cohort of patients with NVAF recently on VKAs and to assess the risk of TE and major bleeding complications in a contemporary cohort of outpatients with NVAF anticoagulated with VKAs. Furthermore, in this thesis we also aimed to assess the usefulness and reliability of different contemporary risk estimation scales in atrial fibrillation.