20-year trends of characteristics and outcomes of stroke patients with atrial fibrillation

Background The accurate knowledge of secular trends in prevalence, characteristics and outcomes of patients with ischemic stroke and atrial fibrillation allows better projections into the future. Aim We aimed to report the overall, age- and sex-specific secular trends of characteristics and outcomes of patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and atrial fibrillation between 1993 and 2012 in the Athens Stroke Registry. Methods We used Joinpoint regression analysis to calculate the average annual percent changes and 95% confidence intervals. Results Among 3314 stroke patients, 1044 (31.5%) had atrial fibrillation. Between 1993 and 2012, there was an average annual reduction of 0.8% (95% CI: −1.5%; 0.0%) in the proportion of atrial fibrillation patients among all AIS patients, whereas the proportion of newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation patients among all atrial fibrillation patients increased annually by an average of 7.1% (95% CI: 5.4%;8.9%). Among all atrial fibrillation patients, there was an average annual reduction of 2.9% (95% CI: −2.7; −3.2%) in the proportion of previously known atrial fibrillation patients, followed by an annual average reduction of 2.4% (95% CI: −1.2; −3.6%) in the proportion of previously known atrial fibrillation patients not receiving any antithrombotic treatment at admission. During that period, there was an increase in the average annual proportion of previously known atrial fibrillation patients treated with anticoagulants (6.4%, 95% CI: 1.2;11.9%) and aspirin (2.3%, 95% CI: −0.4;5.0%) at admission; an average annual increase in the proportion of atrial fibrillation patients who were prescribed anticoagulant was apparent both for patients with mRS