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.