Patients with atrial fibrillation have nearly twice the risk of stroke in first 30 days of starting warfarin

Patients with atrial fibrillation have nearly twice the risk of stroke in the first 30 days of starting warfarin than those who don’t take warfarin, after which their relative risk decreases, shows a new analysis of data from more than 70 000 patients in a UK general practice database.1

The researchers analysed data from the UK clinical practice research database Datalink, the world’s largest primary care database, from 70 766 patients who were given a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation between 1 January 1993 …