Chapter 4 56 written informed consent. There was a waiver for the use of retrospective data. The study was carried out according to the ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects established by Declaration of Helsinki, protecting the privacy of all the participants and the confidentiality of their personal information. 3. Results 3.1. Patient population A total of 164 consecutive patients were scheduled for a 1-year follow-up visit at the outpatient clinic after their first catheter ablation of AF (Supplemental Table 1). After exclusion of 30 patients with diagnosed SDB at the time of catheter ablation, 104 of 134 patients (participation rate 78%) were enrolled and comprised the final study population (Fig. 2A). Patient characteristics of the study population are presented in Table 1. In the final study population, there were 40 patients (38%) with AF recurrence in the first year after catheter ablation. All patients could successfully use the WatchPAT, there were no dropouts. 3.2. SDB status and risk of AF recurrence The median WP-derived AHI for the total study population was 11.5 (IQR, 6.8–21.9) and 39 patients (38%) had undiagnosed SDB with an AHI ≥ 15. All patients with undiagnosed SDB (AHI ≥ 15) had predominant obstructive sleep apnea (no patient had predominant central sleep apnea), with a very low median central AHI of 1.9 (IQR, 0.6–4.4). The patient characteristics between patients with and without undiagnosed SDB is presented in Table 1. In comparison with patients with no SDB, patients with undiagnosed SDB were older, were more often female, more often had diabetes and hypertension, higher CHA2DS2-VASc score, higher body mass index and more often used antiarrhythmic drugs (Table 1). The risk of AF recurrence was higher in patients with undiagnosed SDB in comparison to patients without undiagnosed SDB (51% versus 31%, OR 2.37, 95% CI 1.04–5.38, P = 0.04) (Fig. 2B). Vice versa, patients with AF recurrence showed a trend towards a higher median AHI value, 14.7 (IQR, 7.5–28.0) versus 10.6 (IQR, 6.6–16.5), P = 0.09 (Fig. 3). The risk of AF recurrence was similar between patients with undiagnosed and previously diagnosed SDB (51% versus 50%, OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.41–2.73, P = 0.92) (Fig. 2B). Patient characteristics between patients with undiagnosed and previously
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