Results
Our study included a total of 637 patients undergoing AF ablation, of which 136 (21.4%) were undergoing repeat ablation. The pre-COVID cohort included 424 patients, and the post-COVID cohort included 213 patients. The mean age was 65.6 ± 10.1 years in the total population, and the majority were male (Table 1). The median body mass index (BMI) was 29.1 (26.0 – 34.1) kg/m2, and the median CHA2DS2-VASc score was 2 (1–3), with no significant difference between cohorts. A higher proportion of patients with paroxysmal AF (PAF) (70.4 vs. 62.3 %, p=0.04) were included in the post-COVID cohort. A higher proportion of the patients included in the pre-COVID cohort had hyperlipidemia (29 vs. 17.4 %, p=<0.01) and a history of smoking (31.6 vs. 1.9 %, p=<0.01). Other comorbidities remained comparable between the two groups. Pre-procedure anticoagulation was used in 604 (94.8%) patients, with either uninterrupted warfarin therapy (n=45; 7.1%), or minimally interrupted dabigatran (n=45; 7.1%), rivaroxaban (n=175; 27.5%), or apixaban (n=339; 53.2%). The use of rivaroxaban was higher in the pre-COVID cohort (30.7 vs. 21.1 %, p=0.01), whereas apixaban was more commonly prescribed in the post-COVID cohort (61 vs. 49.3 %, p=<0.01).