Data sources and participants
The AF Frontier Ablation Registry (UMIN Clinical Trials Registry:
UMIN000026849) is a multicenter cohort study whose study design has
previously been described in detail.9 Briefly, the
study included 3530 consecutive patients who underwent catheter ablation
for AF at any of the 24 cardiovascular centers in Japan between August
2011 and July 2017. The clinical data, such as patient characteristics
(e.g., age, sex, AF type, comorbidities, blood test results,
echocardiographic characteristics, and drugs), catheter ablation
findings, and follow-up data were retrieved from each hospital’s medical
records. The follow-up data included information as to whether the AF
had relapsed after catheter ablation, whether oral anticoagulants (OACs)
or antiarrhythmic drugs (AADs) had been discontinued, and whether
adverse events such as ischemic stroke, hemorrhagic stroke, transient
ischemic attack (TIA), heart failure, acute coronary syndrome, or
all-cause death had occurred. The dates of AF recurrence and occurrence
of these adverse events were also recorded.
In this analysis, we included patients from the AF Frontier Ablation
Registry who underwent a first catheter ablation for AF and completed
the follow-up more than 3 months after the procedure. To avoid the
effects of multiple ablation sessions, we excluded patients who
underwent catheter ablation of AF more than once.
The patients consented to the use of their anonymized clinical data for
research purposes through the opt-out program. The study protocol was
approved by the institutional review boards of all 24 hospitals where
the patients were treated.