Patient inclusion
This was a retrospective study conducted at the Maria Vittoria Hospital
in Turin, Italy, during the pandemic of COVID-19 and was approved by the
institutional review board. Informed written consent to sedation and
ablation was obtained from all patients.
All consecutive patients with paroxysmal or persistent AF who underwent
catheter ablation between January 1st, 2020 and
December 31st, 2020, either at their first or second
ablation procedure, were considered eligible for the study and were
included in the analysis; there was no exclusion criteria for enrollment
other than guideline-directed clinical contraindication to catheter
ablation.2