Unmet Clinical Needs in Elderly Patients Receiving Direct Oral Anticoagulants for Stroke Prevention in Non-valvular Atrial Fibrillation

Vitamin K antagonists have been used for many years as the treatment of choice for long-term oral anticoagulation in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation. Unfortunately, the use of those drugs in the real-world setting, particularly among elderly patients, is suboptimal because of their limitations in management. Therefore, many patients were not adequately anticoagulated. Direct oral anticoagulants have been demonstrated to overcome almost all the limitations derived from the use of vitamin K antagonists. Direct oral anticoagulants are at least as effective as vitamin K antagonists in preventing thromboembolic events in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation and safer in reducing the risk of intracranial haemorrhage and all-cause mortality. However, as a result of the strict inclusion and exclusion criteria applied to patients, data coming from randomized controlled trials might not apply to the general population. Furthermore, elderly patients were scarcely represented in randomized controlled trials with direct oral anticoagulants. Therefore in elderly patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation, unmet clinical needs still exist. This review article highlights some of them and provides potential answers based on the results coming from randomized clinical trials, real-world data, and the authors’ clinical experience.