Patients characteristics
During this study period, a total of 697 patients (paroxysmal 51%) underwent a first-time radiofrequency PVI guided by CARTO3 navigation system. Sixteen patients were excluded from this study, because 15 patients could not be followed up for 3 months and 1 had no available pre-procedural echocardiogram or laboratory data. Four hundred forty-six patients underwent CF-guided ablation between September 2014 and July 2018, and 235 underwent AI-guided ablation between August 2018 and August 2019. Among these patients, 458 patients (AI group, n=229; CF group, n=229) were selected by PSM. A flowchart of the study population is shown in Figure 1.
After the PSM, there were no significant differences between the two groups regarding the baseline patient characteristics, type of AF, medical history, CHADS2VASc score, laboratory findings, and echocardiographic parameters (Table 1).