Ischemic Stroke Prevention in Patients Atrial Fibrillation and a Recent Ischemic Stroke, TIA, or Intracranial Hemorrhage; a World Stroke Organisation (WSO) Scientific Statement

Secondary stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the fastest growing areas in the field of cerebrovascular diseases. This Scientific statement from the World Stroke Organization Brain & Heart Task Force provides a critical analysis of the strength of current evidence this topic, highlights areas of current controversy, identifies knowledge gaps, and proposes priorities for future research. We select topics with the highest clinical relevance and perform a systematic search to answer specific practical questions. Based on the strength of available evidence and knowledge gaps, we identify topics that need to be prioritized in future research. For this purpose, we adopt a novel classification of evidence strength based on the availability of publications in which the primary population is patients with recent (