International Circulation: What is the best anticoagulation drug after ablation， Warfarin or some other drug?

　　Young－Hoon Kim: Warfarin is still the standard therapy in patients with high-risk such as patients with a history of stroke， significant left ventricular dysfunction. In low-risk patients aspirin is the alternative drug of choice rather than Warfarin.

　　International Circulation: As you mentioned in your talk， Warfarin is underused in Korea as it is in China. Can you explain why in eastern Asian countries Warfarin is underused?

　　Young－Hoon Kim: I think one of the reasons is actually that the doctors do not strongly recommend Warfarin to their patients and don’t closely follow up the INR value in patients who need anticoagulation. Another reason is that most patients are rather reluctant to take Warfarin anticoagulation therapy because of the diet interference and they don’t want check the INR in regular basis. Also， doctors other than cardiologists who take care of patients with atrial fibrillation or other arrhythmic， such as nephrologists， family doctors， and other specialists， don’t pay much attention on maintaining a strict adherence to the INR even in patients who have a history of stroke and other high-risk factors. These are the major obstacles. There may also be genetic factors which contribute such as vitamin K deficiencies. Even with a very small dose of Warfarin there is an increased risk of bleeding which makes the dose adjustment very difficult. We need international collaborative studies to investigate the questions and hopefully we could reach a consensus in Asia in future.

　　International Circulation: Also， with all of the new anticoagulation agents like dabigartran， do you think it will be better to be used in Asian patients?

　　Young－Hoon Kim: Yes， so far the data seems to be very promising. Especially in the Asian region dabigatran may be better. There would be a significant