Search results and studies characteristics
2312 articles were retrieved by the electronic search and 3 additional
articles were identified by hand-search. The flow of study selection is
depicted in Figure 1. 17 articles were considered to be eligible and
were included in the final analysis[13-29]. We
analyzed 1704 patients (68.6% men) with a pooled mean (SD) age of
59.9(10.6) years. Among them 65.9% had PAF, while the main
comorbidities were hypertension (51.6%) and diabetes mellitus (11%).
The baseline pre-ablation weighted mean (SD) maximum LA volume index
(LAVi) and left ventricular ejection fraction were 38.38 (16.27) and
61.5% (9%), respectively. For quantification of LA-PLSsys most studies
used the EchoPac PC, GE Vingmed, Horton, Norway software, with the vast
majority of the researches measuring LA-PLSsys in at least 6 segments.
Two studies included a mixed population of patients who underwent first
and second PVI procedure[20, 22], while in one
study the majority of patients were treated with electrical
cardioversion prior to CA procedure (LA-PLSsys was measured before
cardioversion)[29]. AF recurrence occurred in
32.7% of the patients analyzed. Studies characteristics are summarized
in Table 1.