Antithrombotics are blood thinning medications that are used to treat a range of cardiovascular diseases.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one such disease, and is the most common disturbance of heart rhythm and a common cause of stroke.
In individuals who have AF, antithrombotics (AT) are used to lower stroke risk. However, around a third of those with AF are not on the most effective type of AT or take no medication at all.
New evidence is emerging that individuals already taking AT medication (whether for AF or for another disease) may have improved outcomes if they become infected with COVID-19. However, the evidence for a protective association between AT and COVID-19 remains inconclusive.
This study, therefore, set out to conduct the largest scale evaluation of AT use in individuals with AF to date in routinely updated, linked, population-scale electronic health record (EHR) data for 56 million people in England. Utilising this statistical power, this study investigated what factors are associated with pre-existing AT use and whether pre-existing AT use (across sub-types) may reduce COVID-19 related hospitalisation and death.
Paper available here
Analysis code and supporting materials (e.g. phenotype codelists, protocol) are available on the BHF Github repository.
A web dashboard with summary results is available here