Evidence Scoring system
Only observational studies (OS), propensity scored (PS) studies,
randomized controlled trials (RCT), and meta-analysis (MA) of ablation
strategies for PAF and non-PAF were included. OS, PS and MA were
excluded if there was no PVI only control group for comparison. For the
meta-analyses, only the largest and/or latest published were included.
A positive score favors technique implementation, while a negative score
indicates that there are no additional benefits with the approach. AF
evidence-based scores were calculated by considering the different
weights of the studies, as described below.
- OS (yellow)were scored as +1/-1
- PS studies(gold) were scored as +2/-2. Additional points were given
depending on the interventional arm population (+1/-1 if
< 500 patients, +2/-2 if between 500-1000 patients, or +3/-3
if > 1000 patients).
- RCT (orange) were scored as +3/-3. Additional points were given
depending on the interventional arm population (+1/-1 if <
100 patients, +2/-2 if between 100-200 patients, or +3/-3 if
> 200 patients).
- MA (red) was scored as +2/-2 if only included OS; +3/-3 if included
RCTs and OS; +4/-4 if included RCT, PS and OS; +5/-5 if only included
RCT. If it included only RCTs, additional points were given depending
on the interventional arm population (+1/-1 if < 500
patients, +2/-2 if between 500-1000 patients, or +3/-3 if
> 1000 patients).