Global Anticoagulant Registry in the Field (GARFIELD-AF)

Using data from more than 1000 randomly selected centres across 35 countries, representing all possible care settings, the registry will help to characterize real-life anticoagulant treatment patterns and outcomes, including rates of stroke and bleeding complications, as well as provide data on other important issues, such as physicians' compliance with guidelines and patients' adherence to therapy. This is particularly timely as standard practice moves away from vitamin K antagonist (VKA)-dominated therapy and towards a new era of novel oral anticoagulants (OACs), i.e. direct Factor Xa inhibitors and direct thrombin inhibitors.

To ensure a dataset that truly reflects current practice, the investigators are requested to prospectively enrol all newly diagnosed patients with non-valvular AF who have at least one additional investigator-determined risk factor for stroke. Patients are consecutively recruited into one of five cohorts and followed up for at least 2 years.

With 3 cohorts complete and 36,000 enrolled GARFIELD-AF continues to recruit patients and, in conjunction with other registries and non-interventional studies, will be the source of further informative and useful data in the coming years. The findings will serve to increase our understanding of the management of patients with AF and improve our practice for their benefit.