TY - JOUR AU - Altman D. AU - Woodward Mark AU - Peters S. AU - Emdin C. AU - Hsiao A. AU - Wong C. AU - Odutayo A. AB -

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether atrial fibrillation is a stronger risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death in women compared with men. DESIGN: Meta-analysis of cohort studies. DATA SOURCES: Studies published between January 1966 and March 2015, identified through a systematic search of Medline and Embase and review of references. ELIGIBILITY FOR SELECTING STUDIES: Cohort studies with a minimum of 50 participants with and 50 without atrial fibrillation that reported sex specific associations between atrial fibrillation and all cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, stroke, cardiac events (cardiac death and non-fatal myocardial infarction), and heart failure. DATA EXTRACTION: Two independent reviewers extracted study characteristics and maximally adjusted sex specific relative risks. Inverse variance weighted random effects meta-analysis was used to pool sex specific relative risks and their ratio. RESULTS: 30 studies with 4 371 714 participants were identified. Atrial fibrillation was associated with a higher risk of all cause mortality in women (ratio of relative risks for women compared with men 1.12, 95% confidence interval 1.07 to 1.17) and a significantly stronger risk of stroke (1.99, 1.46 to 2.71), cardiovascular mortality (1.93, 1.44 to 2.60), cardiac events (1.55, 1.15 to 2.08), and heart failure (1.16, 1.07 to 1.27). Results were broadly consistent in sensitivity analyses. CONCLUSION: Atrial fibrillation is a stronger risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death in women compared with men, though further research would be needed to determine any causality.

AD - George Institute for Global Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK cemdin@georgeinstitute.org.uk.
Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
George Institute for Global Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
George Institute for Global Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK George Institute for Global Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. AN - 26786546 BT - BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.) DA - 93593937117 DP - NLM ET - 2016/01/21 LA - eng LB - UK
FY16
AUS
PROF N1 - Emdin, Connor A
Wong, Christopher X
Hsiao, Allan J
Altman, Douglas G
Peters, Sanne Ae
Woodward, Mark
Odutayo, Ayodele A
England
BMJ. 2016 Jan 19;532:h7013. doi: 10.1136/bmj.h7013. N2 -

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether atrial fibrillation is a stronger risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death in women compared with men. DESIGN: Meta-analysis of cohort studies. DATA SOURCES: Studies published between January 1966 and March 2015, identified through a systematic search of Medline and Embase and review of references. ELIGIBILITY FOR SELECTING STUDIES: Cohort studies with a minimum of 50 participants with and 50 without atrial fibrillation that reported sex specific associations between atrial fibrillation and all cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, stroke, cardiac events (cardiac death and non-fatal myocardial infarction), and heart failure. DATA EXTRACTION: Two independent reviewers extracted study characteristics and maximally adjusted sex specific relative risks. Inverse variance weighted random effects meta-analysis was used to pool sex specific relative risks and their ratio. RESULTS: 30 studies with 4 371 714 participants were identified. Atrial fibrillation was associated with a higher risk of all cause mortality in women (ratio of relative risks for women compared with men 1.12, 95% confidence interval 1.07 to 1.17) and a significantly stronger risk of stroke (1.99, 1.46 to 2.71), cardiovascular mortality (1.93, 1.44 to 2.60), cardiac events (1.55, 1.15 to 2.08), and heart failure (1.16, 1.07 to 1.27). Results were broadly consistent in sensitivity analyses. CONCLUSION: Atrial fibrillation is a stronger risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death in women compared with men, though further research would be needed to determine any causality.

PY - 2016 SN - 1756-1833 (Electronic)
0959-535X (Linking) EP - h7013 T2 - BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.) TI - Atrial fibrillation as risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death in women compared with men: systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies VL - 532 Y2 - FY16 ER -