The American journal of medicine
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Review Meta Analysis
Syncope risk stratification tools vs clinical judgment: an individual patient data meta-analysis.
There have been several attempts to derive syncope prediction tools to guide clinician decision-making. However, they have not been largely adopted, possibly because of their lack of sensitivity and specificity. We sought to externally validate the existing tools and to compare them with clinical judgment, using an individual patient data meta-analysis approach. ⋯ Despite the use of an individual patient data approach to reduce heterogeneity among studies, a large variability was still present. Current prediction tools did not show better sensitivity, specificity, or prognostic yield compared with clinical judgment in predicting short-term serious outcome after syncope. Our systematic review strengthens the evidence that current prediction tools should not be strictly used in clinical practice.
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Oral anticoagulation is highly effective in preventing stroke and mortality in nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients. However, the efficacy and safety of vitamin K antagonists (the main oral anticoagulation drug used) strongly depends upon the quantity of anticoagulation control, as reflected by the average percentage of the time in therapeutic range of international normalized ratio 2.0-3.0. An easy, simple prediction of which atrial fibrillation patients are likely to do well on vitamin K antagonists (with good average time in therapeutic range) could guide decision-making between using vitamin K antagonists (eg, warfarin) and non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants. ⋯ In a "real world" cohort of consecutive patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation, a high SAMe-TT2R2 score (reflecting poor anticoagulation control with poor time in therapeutic range) was associated with more bleeding, adverse cardiovascular events, and mortality during follow-up.