The effect of oral anticoagulant use on incidence of dementia
For OAC use versus non-OAC use, the results including all 9 studies, presented a significant association of the OAC use and the reduction of incidence of dementia (RR [95%CI] =0.72 [0.60, 0.86], I2=97.2%; P =0.000) (Figure 2A, Table 1); for studies including patients of CHA2DS2-VASc score ≥ 2, the results including 18,076 patients of 2 studies, displayed the similar trend of the intended outcome(RR [95%CI] =0.83 [0.72, 0.97], I2=0.0%;P =0.021) (Table 1). For VKA use vs. non-OAC use, including 514,111 patients of 4 studies, VKA use was significantly associated with reducing the incidence of dementia (RR [95%CI] =0.78 [0.65, 0.93], I2=93.4%;P =0.006) (Figure 2B, Table 1). For NOAC use vs. non-OAC use, the results including 274,723 patients of 2 studies, had no statistical difference (RR [95%CI] =0.61 [0.27, 1.42], I2=95.7%; P =0.254) (Table 1). For VKA use vs. NOAC use, there was no statistically significant difference of pooled RR synthesized from 2 studies (RR [95%CI] =0.91 [0.75, 1.12], I2=0.0%; P =0.384) (Table 1).