Does non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants reduce stroke, systemic embolism, and severe bleeding in elderly patients with atrial fibrillation?
In elderly patients with atrial fibrillation, NOACs provide superior protection against stroke and severe bleeding compared to VKAs, despite an increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding.
In elderly patients with AF, NOACs are associated to a lower risk of SSE, intracranial bleeding, haemorrhagic stroke and fatal bleeding than VKAs, but increase GI bleedings. In this analysis, the safety profile of individual NOAC agents was significantly different.
Silverio et al. (Tue,) studied this question.