Boehringer Ingelheim demonstrates AF care variations via international registry

Boehringer Ingelheim has announced worldwide data from its Gloria-AF registry programme, which highlights substantial regional differences in how atrial fibrillation (AF) patients are treated with stroke prevention medicines.

Data collected from 1,063 newly diagnosed AF patients from nine countries over one-and-a-half years revealed that a large proportion were treated with less effective antiplatelet therapies or did not receive any stroke prevention treatment at all.

Anticoagulants such as warfarin or Boehringer Ingelheim's Pradaxa are generally better for stroke prevention in this group, but many are still not receiving this type of therapy, particularly in nations such as China.

Professor Chang-Sheng Ma of China's Capital Medical University, a member of the Gloria-AF steering committee, said: "We look forward to future results which will enable us to advance management of atrial fibrillation and to ultimately better protect patients against a potentially devastating stroke wherever in the world they live."

By the time it is completed, the registry programme will enrol up to 56,000 patients in 50 countries. The 10,000th patient was signed up for the scheme in March 2014.