Current guidelines recommend for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) lasting more than 48 h designated for cardioversion standard approach with anticoagulation for a minimum 3 weeks before anticoagulation. The alternative is abbreviated anticoagulation in case of using trans-oesophageal echocardiography (TEE)-guided approach with quick cardioversion if no thrombus or high-grade spontaneous echo contrast is seen. There is currently no data on the direct comparison of efficacy and safety of conventional and abbreviated courses of non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOAC) before cardioversion in AF.~The RE-SOUND study is prospective open label study with blinded outcome evaluation (PROBE design) multicenter active control trial comparing efficacy of 3-day abbreviated TEE-guided and conventional 3-week courses of NOAC dabigatran etexilate before cardioversion in adult patients with AF lasting more than 48 h
The purpose of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of abbreviated 3-day anticoagulation with dabigatran etexilate before cardioversion guided by trans-oesophageal echocardiography in comparison with conventional 3- week course of dabigatran etexilate before cardioversion