Characteristics of the study subjects
The study flow chart of the present study is shown in Figure 1. After
excluding the patients whose follow-up period was less than one year and
performing a propensity score matching, 45 pairs were matched. The
baseline clinical characteristics, echocardiographic variables, and
biomarkers after the propensity score matching are shown in Table 1. The
age, body mass index and baseline eGFR did not differ between the two
groups while the serum NT-proBNP level was significantly higher
(P=0.04), and more patients were taking β-blockers (P<0.01) in
the control group than ablation group. The number of patients with
hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) was larger in the
ablation group compared to the control group (P=0.02).