5 Discussion
This study demonstrated that (i) flow volume of LAA measured by VENC-MRI
is significantly improved after RFCA in AF patients; (ii) patients
without late recurrence can have significantly greater improvement in
LAA flow volume; (iii) the degree of improvement in VENC-MRI is
significantly more prominent in patients with low LAA flow volume before
RFCA. This is the first study to demonstrate the relationship between
RFCA and improvement in VENC-MRI, a reliable predictor of LAA
hemodynamics. The strong points of the current study are as follows: (i)
measurement of LAA flow volume with MRI, a non-invasive imaging test;
(ii) sufficient number of patients who had both pre- and post-RFCA
VENC-MRI results.