The Burden of Atrial Fibrillation as Stroke Risk Factor in Southeast Asia: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction Stroke is the most burden complication in a patient with atrial fibrillation. Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the common cardiac arrythmia in stroke patients. The epidemiology study of AF-associated stroke were limited published research in southeast. This study may prove valuable in routine clinical practice. This systematic review aimed to identify the latest evidence on the epidemiology of AF related stroke in southeast Asia regions.
 Methods: We performed a comprehensive search on prevalence or incidence of atrial fibrillation related stroke from inception up until September 2019 through PubMed and Cochrane Central Database. The keywords were the combination of the following words: “stroke”, “epidemiology”, “atrial fibrillation”, and was then used with the name of each country in southeast Asia”. The inclusion criteria of the study i.e : patients with stroke, was a original papers with observational study, concerned on AF in stroke patients in southeast Asia. Data on incidence and prevalence were obtained from hospital-based studies and community-based studies.
 Results: Atrial Fibrillation prevalence data are available in five countries in southeast Asia, a total of the 11 articles identified were from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and Indonesia were also represented. The reported prevalence of AF as a risk factor of stroke patients was 2.6 % until 23.04% based on hospital-based studies.
 Conclusion: AF is one of risk factors that associated with the stroke. This study also showed that prevalence AF in South East Asia ranged 2.6 – 23.04 % . However, owing to the limited number of studies in southeast Asian countries, further investigation is needed before drawing a definite true of prevalence of AF in the southeast Asia population.
 Keywords: Atrial Fibrillation, AF-associated Stroke, Epidemiology, Risk Factors.