New oral anticoagulants for nonvalvular atrial fibrillation with peripheral artery disease: a meta-analysis; [Neue orale Antikoagulanzien bei nichtvalvulärem Vorhofflimmern und gleichzeitiger peripherer arterieller Verschlusskrankheit: eine Metaanalyse]

Background: New oral anticoagulants (NOACs) are as effective and safe as warfarin for patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). Limited evidence is available regarding outcomes for NVAF patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). Methods: A systematic search of Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Library was performed. Two reviewers independently performed data extraction and quality assessment using the Cochrane Collaboration tool for assessing risk of bias. All primary publications and secondary analyses comparing NOACs with other oral anticoagulation regimens for the prevention of stroke in patients with both NVAF and PAD from phase III clinical trials were evaluated. The primary outcomes were stroke, systemic embolism (SE), major bleeding, and intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), and the secondary outcomes were cardiovascular (CV) mortality, all-cause mortality, and myocardial infarction (MI). Results: Three articles were included in this study. The pooled results showed a relative risk for stroke/SE with NOACs of 0.86 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.53–1.39), for major bleeding, 1.12 (95% CI: 0.70–1.81), for ICH, 0.47 (95% CI: 0.16–1.36), for CV mortality, 0.77 (95% CI: 0.57–1.04), for all-cause mortality, 0.91 (95% CI: 0.70–1.19), and for MI, 1.10 (95% CI: 0.64–1.90). Conclusion: The findings show that NOACs are effective and safe for preventing stroke/SE in patients with both NVAF and PAD. © 2020, Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.