Abstract: Objective To investigate the impact of Atrial Fibrillation Better Care (ABC) pathway on the outcome of ischemic stroke in the elderly patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF). Methods A case-control study was conducted. A total of 129 elderly patients with non-valvular AF who experienced a new ischemic stroke were enrolled as the case group, and 258 elderly patients with non-valvular AF without ischemic stroke during the same period were enrolled as the control group. The two groups were matched in terms of gender, age ±2 with a ratio of 1∶2. The management of AF, baseline characteristics, clinical indicators, comorbidities and medication use were compared between the two groups. Multifactorial Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the impact of anticoagulation management and the ABC pathway on the outcome of ischemic stroke in the elderly patients with non-valvular AF. Results Between the two groups, the differences in AF management, the usage rates of beta blocker, statin and non-vitamin K antagonists, the levels of blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol(LDL-C), and the rates of coronary heart disease and stroke were statistically significant (P<0.05). Conditional Logistic regression analysis showed that after adjusting coronary heart disease, previous stroke/transient ischemic attack and LDL-C level, anticoagulation management was a protective factor of ischemic stroke (OR＝0.37, 95%CI: 0.17-0.82), and ABC pathway was a better protective factor of ischemic stroke (OR＝0.19, 95%CI: 0.08-0.47). Conclusions Compared with anticoagulation management, the ABC pathway shows a further trend of reducing the risk of ischemic stroke in the elderly patients with non-valvular AF.

Key words: non-valvular atrial fibrillation, ischemic stroke, ABC pathway, anticoagulation management