Long-term survival and outcomes
A total of 209 patients the 2 groups (41 in LVD and 168 in NLVF), accounting for 68.1%, completed the planned follow-up. The median duration of the observed period were 42.8 months (range: 0.2 to 81.5 months) in the matched LVD cohort and 43.6 months (range: 0.1 to 80.9 months) in the matched NLVF cohort. During follow up period, 11 patients in LVD cohort and 11 patients in NLVF cohort died, with the long-term survivals of 72.5% and 90.8%, respectively. Of them, 7 patients in LVD cohort and 9 patients in NLVF cohort were cardiac death. The Kaplan Meier survival estimates at one-, three- and five-years for LVD cohort were 97.5%, 81.8% and 68.3%; while those for NLVF cohort were 97.5%, 88.2% and 79.5%. The 5-year freedoms from cardiac death were 74.8% and 86.3% in LVD and NLVF cohort respectively (Figure 2). As shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2, Kaplan-Meier curves displayed a similar freedom from all cause death (χ 2 = 2.431,p =0.119) or cardio-death (χ 2 = 2.844,p =0.092) between the two groups.