Jorge Romero1, Roberto C Cerrud-Rodriguez1, Juan Carlos Diaz1, Gregory F Michaud2, Jose Taveras1, Isabella Alviz1, Vito Grupposo1, Luis Cerna1, Ricardo Avendano1, Saurabh Kumar3, Paulus Kirchhof4, Andrea Natale5, Luigi Di Biase1. 1. Montefiore-Einstein Center for Heart and Vascular Care, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 2814 Middletown Rd, Bronx, NY, USA. 2. Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 2220 Pierce Avenue, Nashville, TN, USA. 3. Department of Cardiology, Westmead Hospital, University of Sydney, Darcy Rd, Westmead NSW, Australia. 4. The Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, UK. 5. Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute at St. David's Medical Center, Austin, TX, USA.
Abstract
Aims: To assess the incremental benefit of uninterrupted direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) vs. uninterrupted vitamin K antagonists (VKA) for catheter ablation (CA) of non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) on three primary outcomes: major bleeding, thrombo-embolic events, and minor bleeding. A secondary outcome was post-procedural silent cerebral infarction (SCI) as detected by brain magnetic resonance imaging. Methods and results: A systematic review of Medline, Cochrane, and Embase was done to find all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in which uninterrupted DOACs were compared against uninterrupted VKA for CA of NVAF. A fixed-effect model was used, with the exception of the analysis regarding major bleeding events (I2 > 25), for which a random effects model was used. The benefit of uninterrupted DOACs over VKA was analysed from four RCTs that enrolled a total of 1716 patients (male: 71.2%) with NVAF. Of these, 1100 patients (64.1%) had paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. No significant benefit was seen in major bleeding events [risk ratio (RR) 0.54, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.29-1.00; P = 0.05]. No significant differences were found in minor bleeding events (RR 1.11, 95% CI 0.82-1.52; P = 0.50), thrombo-embolic events (RR 0.74, 95% CI 0.26-2.11; P = 0.57), or post-procedural SCI (RR 1.06, 95% CI 0.74-1.53; P = 0.74). Conclusion: An uninterrupted DOACs strategy for CA of NVAF appears to be as safe as uninterrupted VKA without a significantly increased risk of minor or major bleeding events. There was a trend favouring DOACs in terms of major bleeding. Given their ease of use, fewer drug interactions and a similar security and effectiveness profile, DOACs should be considered first line therapy in patients undergoing CA for NVAF.
Aims: To assess the incremental benefit of uninterrupted direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) vs. uninterrupted vitamin K antagonists (VKA) for catheter ablation (CA) of non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) on three primary outcomes: major bleeding, thrombo-embolic events, and minor bleeding. A secondary outcome was post-procedural silent cerebral infarction (SCI) as detected by brain magnetic resonance imaging. Methods and results: A systematic review of Medline, Cochrane, and Embase was done to find all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in which uninterrupted DOACs were compared against uninterrupted VKA for CA of NVAF. A fixed-effect model was used, with the exception of the analysis regarding major bleeding events (I2 > 25), for which a random effects model was used. The benefit of uninterrupted DOACs over VKA was analysed from four RCTs that enrolled a total of 1716 patients (male: 71.2%) with NVAF. Of these, 1100 patients (64.1%) had paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. No significant benefit was seen in major bleeding events [risk ratio (RR) 0.54, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.29-1.00; P = 0.05]. No significant differences were found in minor bleeding events (RR 1.11, 95% CI 0.82-1.52; P = 0.50), thrombo-embolic events (RR 0.74, 95% CI 0.26-2.11; P = 0.57), or post-procedural SCI (RR 1.06, 95% CI 0.74-1.53; P = 0.74). Conclusion: An uninterrupted DOACs strategy for CA of NVAF appears to be as safe as uninterrupted VKA without a significantly increased risk of minor or major bleeding events. There was a trend favouring DOACs in terms of major bleeding. Given their ease of use, fewer drug interactions and a similar security and effectiveness profile, DOACs should be considered first line therapy in patients undergoing CA for NVAF.
Authors: Ghada A Bawazeer; Hadeel A Alkofide; Aya A Alsharafi; Nada O Babakr; Arwa M Altorkistani; Tarek S Kashour; Michael Miligkos; Khalid M AlFaleh; Lubna A Al-Ansary Journal: Cochrane Database Syst Rev Date: 2021-10-21
Authors: Allyson L Varley; Omar Kreidieh; Brigham E Godfrey; Carolyn Whitmire; Susan Thorington; Benjamin D'Souza; Steven Kang; Shrinivas Hebsur; Bipin K Ravindran; Edwin Zishiri; Brett Gidney; Matthew B Sellers; David Singh; Tariq Salam; Mark Metzl; Alex Ro; Jose Nazari; Westby G Fisher; Alexandru Costea; Anthony Magnano; Saumil Oza; Gustavo Morales; Anil Rajendra; Joshua Silverstein; Paul C Zei; Jose Osorio Journal: J Interv Card Electrophysiol Date: 2021-07-02 Impact factor: 1.900