Pharmacotherapy and mortality in atrial fibrillation—a cohort of men and women 75 years or older in Sweden.

Background: atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common cardiovascular morbidity, not least among elderly people, and is treated with different classes of cardiovascular pharmacotherapies.Hypothesis: cardiovascular drugs may have a different impact on survival in elderly patients with AF in primary health care.Methods: a cohort of 3,020 men and 3,749 women aged ≥75 and diagnosed with AF were selected from 75 primary care centres in Sweden. Laplace regression was used with years to death of the first 10% of the participants as the outcome. Independent variables were prescribed cardiovascular drugs. Regression models were adjusted for a propensity score comprising age, cardiovascular co-morbidities, socio-economic factors and other cardiovascular pharmacotherapies.Results: overall, mortality was 18.2%. The main finding of this study was survival increases associated with anticoagulants versus no treatment and versus antiplatelets of 1.95 years (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.43–2.48) and 0.78 years (95% CI 0.38–1.18), respectively, and survival increases associated with thiazides and calcium channel blockers of 0.81 years (95% CI 0.43–1.18) and 0.83 years (95% CI 0.47–1.18), respectively, in men and women together (results from sex-adjusted models).Conclusion: our findings suggest that anticoagulants, thiazides and calcium channel blockers may lead to longer survival in elderly patients with AF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]