Table 2.

 Summary of ‘age’ as a risk factor for bleeding in AF patients receiving OACs

Study	Subjects (n)	Type of OACs	Age groups	Main findings	RR/OR/HR (95% CI)	P value
SPAF Investigators, 1996	555	VKA	Age >75 vs. ≤75 years	Major bleeding (per year): 4.2% vs. 1.7%	RR 2.6	0.009
Pengo et al., 2001	433	VKA	Age >75 vs. ≤75 years	Major bleeding (per year): 5.1% vs. 1.0%	RR 6.6 (1.2–3.7)	0.032
Fang et al., 2004	1190	VKA	Incremental risk per 5 years	The risk for intracranial haemorrhage increased at ≥85 years of age.	adjusted OR 2.5 (1.3–4.7) compared to age 70–74 years	NR
Pisters et al., 2010	5333	VKA	Age >65 vs. ≤65 years	1-year event rate of major bleeding: 2.3% vs. 0.7%	OR 2.66 (1.33–5.32)	<0.001
Hankey et al., 2014	14 264	VKA/rivaroxaban	Per decade increase in age	Age is an important risk factor of ICH	HR 1.35 (1.13–1.63)	0.001
O’Brien et al., 2015	7411	VKA/dabigatran	Age >75 vs. ≤75 years	Older age had good ability to identify those who bled vs. not.	HR 1.38 (1.17–1.61)	NR
Chao et al., 2020	64 169	VKA/NOACs	Age >90, 75–89 and 65–74 years	Major bleeding (per year): 10.53% vs. 6.11% vs. 3.48% ICH (pear year): 1.33% vs. 0.99% vs. 0.74%	NR	NR

AF, atrial fibrillation; HR, hazard ratio; ICH , intra-cranial haemorrhage; NR, not reported; OACs, oral anticoagulants; OR, odds ratio; NOAC, non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant; RR, relative risk; SPAF, Stroke Prevention in Atrial Fibrillation; VKA, vitamin K antagonists.