Patient details
Between Jan 2011 and Dec 2017, there were 239 patients who were aged over 70 years with pre-operative AF who underwent two cardiac procedures (with or without any additional AF procedures). These were divided into the following groups depending on whether they had procedures to address their AF (Figure 1). After exclusion of patients described above, 70 patients (29.2%) had Cox-Maze IV and 169 patients (70.8%) had No Surgical-AF treatment (Figure 1).
The mean age of the whole cohort was 76.6+/-4.1 years. The demographic data of the four groups are summarized in table 1. The logistic Euroscore was slightly lower in the Cox Maze group (10.0 +/-8.6) compared to the No Surgical AF treatment (13.0+/-8.9) (p=0.04). There were no differences in the NYHA 1 status (p=0.10) or NYHA 4 status (p=0.74) between the groups. There were a higher number of patients with pulmonary hypertension in the No Surgical AF treatment group (15.4%) compared to the AF ablation group (p=0.02). Echocardiogram findings were comparable between the groups with respects to left atrial size (p=0.48) and left ventricular function (p=0.11). There was a significantly shorter duration of AF in the Cox-Maze group (19.9+/-22.3 months) compared to the No Surgical AF treatment group (94.2+/-113.7 months) (p=0.001). There were a significantly higher proportion of patients with PAF in the Cox-Maze group (22.9%) compared to No Surgical AF treatment groups (p=0.00001).