Heartbeat: increased use of NOACs in patients with atrial fibrillation reduces health care system costs by reducing stroke incidence.

A major goal in management of adults with atrial fibrillation (AF) is prevention of stroke. In an editorial, our stroke neurology colleagues1 point out that about 1/3 of patients with an AF-related stroke had a diagnosis of AF before the stroke but were not on anticoagulation therapy. When vitamin K-antagonists were the only option for anticoagulation, ‘many patients did not receive anticoagulant therapy despite a clear-cut indication due to a highly inconvenient treatment (repeated international normalised Ratio measurements, many food and drug-interactions, frequent dose adjustments) and a significant risk of intracerebral (and other major) bleeding.’ Now, with the availability of non-vitamin K oral anticoagulants (NOACs) the risk–benefit balance has shifted towards therapy to prevent AF-related stroke. Still, hesitation remains due to the higher cost of these newer medications. In order to better understand temporal changes in AF-related stroke incidence, anticoagulant medication prescribing and overall and per-patient costs in the UK, Orlowski and colleagues2 compared the time periods of 2011–2014 versus 2014–2017, using National Health Service data. A dramatic increase (over 85%) in oral anticoagulation prescribing was seen, mostly due to increased use of NOACs (figure 1). As expected, greater use of NOACs was associated with an increase in total medication costs by over 780%, mainly due to the increased number of AF patients being treated, corresponding to an increase in medication cost of about 51% per patient. …