UCSD: About one quarter of all atrial fibrillation patients at the lowest
risk for stroke receive unnecessary blood thinners from cardiology
specialists, according to a new study by researchers at University of
California, San Diego and these health care providers must be made aware of the
resulting potential health risks. The findings are published online
April 13 by JAMA Internal Medicine.
“Clinicians who prescribe blood thinners need to be diligent about
weighing the risks and benefits of these medications,” said lead author
Jonathan C. Hsu, MD, cardiologist and assistant clinical professor of
medicine at UC San Diego. “In those who have no risk factors for stroke,
the risk of bleeding likely outweighs the benefit of stroke reduction.
The fact that blood thinners were prescribed to so many patients with no
risk factors for stroke is a wakeup call that we need to do better for
our patients.”
In atrial fibrillation, electrical impulses are triggered from many
areas in and around the upper chambers of the heart instead of just one
area. This activity is chaotic, and the atrial walls quiver rather than
contract normally in moving blood to the lower chambers.
For atrial fibrillation patients at risk for blood clots,
anticoagulation therapies such as warfarin or other drugs reduce the
risk of illness and death. But because their use carries a bleeding
risk, they are not recommended for atrial fibrillation patients at a
particularly low risk for stroke.
In fact, current guidelines do not recommend oral anticoagulation in
patients under age 60 without heart disease or other known risk factors
for blood clots or in atrial fibrillation patients without any
established risk factor for stroke. What’s more, the previous
guidelines, which were in place at the time the data for this study were
collected, contained a very strong recommendation specifically to avoid
anticoagulants in that population.
To examine the prevalence of inappropriate anticoagulant
prescriptions in young and healthy patients at the lowest risk for blood
clots, Hsu and team used a large national registry of cardiovascular
patients. From this, they reviewed nearly 11,000 patients age 60 and
under and found that roughly 25 percent were prescribed oral
anticoagulant therapy contrary to contemporary guideline
recommendations. Further, they found that males with atrial fibrillation
at the lowest risk of stroke were more likely to be prescribed oral
anticoagulation than females, as were older patients and overweight
patients without stroke risk factors.
“The irony is that there is a general push to get providers to
prescribe these drugs, and they are also generally under-prescribed
among many atrial fibrillation patients who actually need them,” said
senior author Gregory Marcus, MD, director of clinical research at UC
San Francisco. “Our study suggests people are trying to do the right
thing but, due to a lack of understanding of some of the critical
nuances, go too far in that direction in low-risk patients.”
Co-authors of this study also include Paul S. Chan, Fengming Tang,
St. Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute and the University of Missouri,
Kansas City; and Thomas M. Maddox, Veterans Affairs Eastern Colorado
Health Care System/University of Colorado School of Medicine.
This research was funded, in part, by the National Heart, Lung, and
Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, (grant
K23HL102224), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Medtronic, and
SentreHeart, Inc.