Patient characteristics
Figure 1 shows the flowchart of the patient enrollment and disposition in this study. The RF and EIVOM/RF groups consisted of 384 (First 346, Re-do 38) and 176 (First 133, Re-do 43) patients, respectively. Out of the 384 patients in the RF group, 301 patients underwent MI ablation before February 2015, when we started EIVOM in our institute, as was previously mentioned. The amenable VOM was not confirmed by angiography in 54 patients. We had difficulty inserting a guidewire in the VOM in 13 patients. A posterior VOM was observed in 13 patients. We canceled angiography for 3 patients due to their previous history of contrast allergy.
Table 1 shows the baseline patient characteristics in this study. The rate of long-standing persistent AF patient in the RF group of the first ablation group was 53% (184/346), and it was higher than that (43%; 57/133) in the EIVOM/RF group; however, left atrial diameter of the two groups were 49 ± 6.1 in the RF group and 49 ± 5.0 mm in the EIVOM/RF group, and similar between the two groups. No significant difference was observed between the two groups regarding other parameters.