Results
From January 2014 through March 2019, 1210 patients underwent ablation for AF and consented to enrollment in our AF ablation database. Of these, 307 patients had been treated in the one-year period prior to ablation with amiodarone for a minimum of 4 weeks as part of a rhythm-control strategy. Amiodarone-treated patients had either PAF (n=146) or persAF (n=161). Patients who had symptomatic PAF or persAF despite amiodarone treatment also underwent CDV prior to ablation for rhythm control (n=228).
Patients who maintained NSR on amiodarone but opted for ablation in lieu of ongoing AAD therapy and presented for the ablation procedure in NSR were defined as the amio-success cohort (n=183). Patients who had breakthrough AF (either episodic PAF or persAF), or who presented for ablation in ongoing AF, were defined as the amio-failure cohort (n=124). Patient identification and categorization flows are shown inFigure 1 .
There were no differences in age, ethnicity, gender, BMI, CHADS-VASC score, LA size, or AF duration (time from identification to ablation) between the amio-success and amio-failure groups. The amio-success group was comprised of 96 (52.5%) patients with PAF and 87 (47.5%) patients with persAF, while the amio-failure group was comprised of 50 (40.3%) patients with PAF and 74 (59.7%) patients with persAF (p=0.03). Clinical and imaging characteristics for each group are provided inTable 1 .