Table 1.

Summary of included cohort studies and characteristics

Study, year, country	Subjects	Mean age (years)	Mean follow-up (years)	Type of bisphosphonate	AF definition	Total AF events (n)	Variables matched and/or controlled	Quality assessment score§
Bunch and colleagues [15], 2009, USA	9,623 (98 BIS users and 9,525 non-users) in angiographic research database	60	4.1	Alendronate Etidronate Ibandronate Risedronate Zoledronic acid	Hospital discharge ICD-9 codes and EKG data	974	Age, HTN, hyperlipidemia, DM, HF, CAD, etc	4/2/3
	37,485 (7,489 BIS users and 29,996 non-users) in a commercial health care system database	51	4.6			1012
Abrahamsen and colleagues [14], 2009, Denmark	43,033 patients (14,302 BIS users and 28,731 non-users) with fractures in the National Hospital Discharge register	74	2.7	Alendronate Clodronate Etidronate Ibandronate Risedronate	Prescription for a cardiac glycoside +/- ICD-10 codes	797 *	Age, gender, fracture sites, medications use for DM, HTN, hypercholesterolemia, and thrombosis, and Charlson index	4/2/3
Huang and colleagues [17], 2009, Taiwan	27,257 women (21,037 BIS users and 6,220 raloxifene users) with osteoporosis in the National Health Insurance database	74	0.6	Alendronate	Inpatient or outpatient ICD-9 codes	821	DM, CAD, COPD, history of AF, HTN, and total defined daily dose of drugs	3/2/2

* only in BIS users, ^§ Methodologic quality assessment score based on Newcastle-Ottawa Scale [23]; selection (0 to 4), comparability (0 to 2), and outcome score (0 to 3) points with a higher score representing a better quality.

AF, atrial fibrillation; BIS, bisphosphonates; CAD, coronary artery disease; COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; DM, diabetes mellitus; EKG, electrocardiogram; HF, heart failure; HTN, hypertension; ICD, International Classification of Diseases.