Efficacy and Safety of Direct Oral Anticoagulant for Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation in Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy

A 75-year-old man with a history of atrial fibrillation (AF) and anticoagulant therapy presented with a headache. Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) was diagnosed after MRI of the brain revealed cortical superficial siderosis, lobar intracerebral hemorrhage, and lobar microbleeds. Anticoagulant therapy was carefully discontinued. Several years later, he was admitted with sudden onset left upper-extremity weakness. In addition to CAA bleeding lesions, a diffusion-weighted brain MRI showed multiple infarct lesions of high signal intensity. The administration of edoxaban 7.5 mg/day (later increased up to 30 mg/day) prevented ischemic stroke recurrence without exacerbation of cerebral bleeding. This could indicate that CAA patients with AF who had previous adverse effects from warfarin can safely use newer direct oral anticoagulants, such as edoxaban, to prevent ischemic stroke without danger of cerebral hemorrhage. The superiority of edoxaban as compared with warfarin might be due to its antioxidant effect because vascular oxidative stress plays a causal role in CAA-induced cerebrovascular dysfunction, CAA-induced cerebral hemorrhage, and CAA formation itself. We explained the beneficial effect of edoxaban for CAA by the mechanism of oxidative stress in the paper.

Keywords: anticoagulant therapy; atrial fibrillation; cerebral amyloid angiopathy; direct oral anticoagulant; oxidative stress.