Post-ablation follow-up
In Japan, patients generally undergo routine outpatient follow-up every
1 to 3 months after catheter ablation for AF. During the follow-up
periods, 12-lead electrocardiography, 24-h Holter monitoring, or cardiac
event recorders are typically employed for detecting arrhythmias. The
judgment of an AF recurrence was left to the discretion of the doctors
of the respective institutions based on current
guidelines,10-12 which describe any documented atrial
tachyarrhythmia episode lasting more than 30 s is considered a
recurrence. AF recurrence 3 months after catheter ablation was defined
as late recurrence, and the isolated occurrence of AF during the 3-month
blanking period was treated as nonrecurrence. The study patients were
classified into AF recurrence group or AF nonrecurrence group according
to the presence or absence of the late AF recurrence.