Does left atrial appendage closure prevent death, stroke, or systemic embolism and reduce bleeding compared to oral anticoagulation in patients who underwent catheter-based atrial fibrillation ablation?
In patients undergoing atrial fibrillation ablation, left atrial appendage closure is a viable alternative to oral anticoagulation, offering noninferior efficacy for stroke prevention and reduced bleeding risk at 3 years.
Among patients who underwent catheter-based atrial fibrillation ablation, left atrial appendage closure was associated with a lower risk of non-procedure-related major or clinically relevant nonmajor bleeding than oral anticoagulation and was noninferior to oral anticoagulation with respect to a composite of death from any cause, stroke, or systemic embolism at 36 months. (Funded by Boston Scientific; OPTION ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03795298.).
Wazni et al. (Sat,) studied this question.