Christopher B Granger, John H Alexander, John J V McMurray, Renato D Lopes, Elaine M Hylek, Michael Hanna, Hussein R Al-Khalidi, Jack Ansell, Dan Atar, Alvaro Avezum, M Cecilia Bahit, Rafael Diaz, J Donald Easton, Justin A Ezekowitz, Greg Flaker, David Garcia, Margarida Geraldes, Bernard J Gersh, Sergey Golitsyn, Shinya Goto, Antonio G Hermosillo, Stefan H Hohnloser, John Horowitz, Puneet Mohan, Petr Jansky, Basil S Lewis, Jose Luis Lopez-Sendon, Prem Pais, Alexander Parkhomenko, Freek W A Verheugt, Jun Zhu, Lars Wallentin
BACKGROUND: Vitamin K antagonists are highly effective in preventing stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation but have several limitations. Apixaban is a novel oral direct factor Xa inhibitor that has been shown to reduce the risk of stroke in a similar population in comparison with aspirin. METHODS: In this randomized, double-blind trial, we compared apixaban (at a dose of 5 mg twice daily) with warfarin (target international normalized ratio, 2.0 to 3.0) in 18,201 patients with atrial fibrillation and at least one additional risk factor for stroke...
September 15, 2011: New England Journal of Medicine