2.5 Statistical analysis
Demographics and clinical characteristics at baseline for cohorts of
involved studies and simulated cohorts were summarized descriptively as
means±SD or proportions as appropriate. Key summary measures of DES
model were reported as event rates (events per 100 patient-years), RDs,
HRs, and RHRs, with associated confidence intervals (95% CIs) estimated
by using the 2.5th and 97.5thpercentiles. Simulation of ROCKET AF was repeated 10, 20, 50, 100, 200,
300, 500, 1000 and 2000 times, respectively, to obtain the optimal
iteration times for stable results. Finally, each simulation was
repeated 1000 times with the computer running time of about 30 minutes.
Analyses were performed using STATA software (version13, StataCorp,
College Station, Texas, USA).
Results