Stroke prevention in elderly patients with atrial fibrillation.

This article comments on a study in this issue which looked at the risk of stroke in older patients on warfarin or aspirin for atrial fibrillation. The study found warfarin was superior to aspirin in the prevention of stroke and was no more harmful to the patients in terms of major haemorrhage. The author maintains that the subjects of the study had a lower prevalence of risk factors for stroke overall and that the challenge will be to see if the results are the same on higher risk patients.