Statistical analysis
Continuous variables were summarized as mean (standard deviation). For pooling the primary outcome of interest, the mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence interval in pre-ablation LA-PLSsys between patients with and without post-ablation AF recurrence, meta-analysis, based on aggregate data, was performed. To allow for expected effect size dispersion between studies (based on intra/inter-observer variation, different methodology/ softwares used and different sample synthesis) a random effects (DerSimonian-Laird) model was adopted. Heterogeneity was assessed using I2, with values between 50% and 90% representing substantial heterogeneity[12]. To explore heterogeneity sensitivity analysis (including only high quality studies) and subgroup analysis were performed. Moreover meta-regression analysis was performed to explore the confounding effect of age, comorbidities and baseline echocardiographic characteristics. All analyses were performed using STATA/MP version 16.0, Texas, USA software.