Thromboembolic events and vascular dementia in patients with atrial fibrillation and low apparent stroke risk

The prevention of thromboembolism in atrial fibrillation (AF) is typically restricted to patients with specific risk factors and ignores outcomes such as vascular dementia. This population-based cohort study used electronic healthcare records from 5,199,994 primary care patients (UK; 2005–2020). A total of 290,525 (5.6%) had a diagnosis of AF and were aged 40–75 years, of which 36,340 had no history of stroke, a low perceived risk of stroke based on clinical risk factors and no oral anticoagulant prescription. Matching was performed for age, sex and region to 117,298 controls without AF. During 5 years median follow-up (831,005 person-years), incident stroke occurred in 3.8% with AF versus 1.5% control (adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 2.06, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.91–2.21; P < 0.001), arterial thromboembolism 0.3% versus 0.1% (HR 2.39, 95% CI 1.83–3.11; P < 0.001), and all-cause mortality 8.9% versus 5.0% (HR 1.44, 95% CI 1.38–1.50; P < 0.001). AF was associated with all-cause dementia (HR 1.17, 95% CI 1.04–1.32; P = 0.010), driven by vascular dementia (HR 1.68, 95% CI 1.33–2.12; P < 0.001) rather than Alzheimer’s disease (HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.70–1.03; P = 0.09). Death and thromboembolic outcomes, including vascular dementia, are substantially increased in patients with AF despite a lack of conventional stroke risk factors.