The Importance of Arrhythmia Burden for Outcomes and Management Related to Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation

Figure 1. Figure from Mantovan et al.14) Change in 8 subscale values in the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) from baseline to 12 months after ablation for patients with recurrence of AF. Arrhythmia burden was split into quartiles. The quartiles were: 30 seconds to 30.8 minutes (Q1), 30.9 minutes to 1.3 hours (Q2), 1.4 hours to 4.7 hours (Q3), and 4.8 to 720 hours (Q4). For Q1 and Q2, there were significant improvements in the magnitude of change for each of the 8 subscales from baseline to 12 months. For patients in Q3, there was either significant improvement (p<0.03 for RP, SF, RE, and MH) or no significant change (PF, BP, GH, VI). For patients in Q4 there was a significant decrease in all subscales. AF = atrial fibrillation; BP = body pain; GH = general health; MH = mental health; PF = physical functioning; RE = role emotional; RP = role physical; SF = social functioning; VI = vitality.

Figure 2. Figure from Terricabras et al.16) Patients with less than 90% AF burden reduction, experienced an improvement in QOL in 6 of the 8 subscales. Patients with less than 80% AF burden reduction, had an improvement in 4 of 8. For patients with less than 70% AF burden reduction, 3 of 8 scales and for patients with less than 60% AF burden reduction, 2 of 8 scales showed a statistically significant positive change. AF = atrial fibrillation.