A Meta-analysis of NOAH-AFNET 6 and ARTESiA Trials

Patients with subclinical atrial fibrillation, detected by implantable devices, have an increased stroke risk, although not as great as that of patient with clinical atrial fibrillation. I also include those patient with an incidental finding of atrial fibrillation in the emergency department ie., not only through interrogation of implantable devices.

What they did?

This study(1) performed a meta-analysis on two large randomised trials; the NOAH-AFNET 6 (2) and the ARTESiA (3) trials.

What they found

In terms of stroke outcomes:

• A reduction in a composite of all-cause stroke, peripheral arterial embolism, myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, or cardiovascular death with oral anticoagulation (RR, 0.85 [95% CI, 0.73–0.99]; I2=0%; Figure 2).
• A reduction in all-cause stroke (RR, 0.68 [95% CI, 0.51–0.90]; I2=0%), and a composite of all-cause stroke or systemic embolism with oral anticoagulation (RR, 0.65 [95% CI, 0.49–0.86]; I2 = 0%).