Anticoagulation for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation: is gender important?

Abstract
The presence of atrial fibrillation (AF) confers a five-fold increased risk of stroke, a figure that may rise to as high as 17 times in the presence of structural heart disease, in particular mitral stenosis. It is estimated that 15% of all strokes may be directly attributable to AF, but of greater concern is that when patients with AF have a stroke, they have a much worse outcome. Being an increasingly more prevalent arrhythmia and given the increasing mean age of the general population, AF presents a significant economic burden.