14. What is the ATHENA trial?

ATHENA stands for A Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind, Parallel Arm Trial to Assess the Efficacy of Dronedarone 400 mg Bid for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Hospitalization or Death from Any Cause in PatiENts with Atrial Fibrillation/Atrial Flutter. It is a double-blind, placebo-controlled morbidity and mortality study in patients with Atrial Fibrillation/Flutter (AF/AFL) and additional cardiovascular risk factors. This is the largest study (4,628 patients) ever conducted in AF/AFL, and the first time a drug for AF was tested in a study for clinical outcomes (instead of the conventional surrogate endpoint of AF/AFL recurrences).