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To understand the risk-benefit ratio of chronic anticoagulant therapy, researchers examined seven studies of six different populations of patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation who were not receiving anticoagulants and identified the risk factors and absolute risk for a stroke.
The risk factors that emerged most consistently were a history of stroke or TIA, with a relative risk of 2.5; increasing age, with a relative risk that increased 1.5 times for each additional decade; history of hypertension, with a relative risk of 2.0; and diabetes mellitus, with a relative risk of 1.7. Neither congestive heart failure nor a history of a coronary disease independently predicted stroke risk in this analysis. Female sex was associated with strok…