Clinical outcomes of the participants according to LVEF
The 3-year clinical outcomes of all patients (REF vs. PEF groups) are
presented in Table 3. The mortality rate and the incidences of stroke
and bleeding were not significantly different between the two groups.
Two patients died during the observation period; the causes were hepatic
encephalopathy with liver cirrhosis and newly diagnosed terminal cancer
in the REF and PEF groups, respectively. However, the rate of HF
hospitalisation (29.2% vs 8.9%, p < 0.02) and incidence of
AF with RVR (20.8% vs 3.3%, p < 0.01) were significantly
higher in the REF group than in the PEF group. Time-dependent
Kaplan-Meier analyses and log-rank tests revealed a high rate of HF
hospitalisation in the REF group (Fig 1a). Cox proportional hazards
models with univariate and multivariateanalyses found that reduced LVEF
(<50%) was an important independent predictor of HF
hospitalisation (Table 4).