The role of metabolic score for visceral fat in the prediction of atrial fibrillation recurrence risk after catheter ablation

Background Previous studies show that visceral fat tissue (VAT) play an important role in atrial fibrillation (AF). The metabolic score of visceral fat (METS-VF), a new surrogate to estimate VAT, is associated with cardiovascular mortality risk. In this study, we try to investigate the association between METS-VF and the risk of AF recurrence after catheter ablation. Methods 478 consecutive patients underwent catheter ablation were obtained and used to assess the relationship between METS-VF and the risk of AF recurrence. Cox regression was used to calculate the hazard ration (HR) of METS-VF for the risk of AF recurrence. Restricted cubic splines (RCS) was used to assessed the linear relationship between METS-VF and the AF recurrence risk. Results A total of 112(23.4%) patients experienced AF recurrence during 18.0 ± 9.6 months follow-up. The AF recurrence rate was significantly higher in the highest quartile of METS-VF than the other three quartiles (log rank = 0.021). In the univariate cox regression, LAD, and MET-VF were associated with AF recurrence (p<0.0001). In the multiple Cox regression results, compared with the participants with lowest METS-VF (Q1), the hazard ratio (HR) (95% CI) for the AF recurrence risk was 1.29 (0.73, 2.29) for Q2 (p=0.39), 1.59 (0.88 – 2.87) for Q3 (p=0.12), and 2.22 (1.20, 4.12) for Q4 (p<0.01) respectively. Conclusions METS-VF was positively associated with the elevated AF recurrence risk. Our findings show that the METS-VF could be used to AF recurrence risk stratification.