# Characterization of Cardiac Fat in Atrial Fibrillation Patients Prior to Ablation Treatment
## 3 Results
### Factors Influencing Different Cardiac Fat Parameters
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline  & **BMI** & **Age Ranges \({}^{\text{a}}\)** & **Sex \({}^{\text{b}}\)** \\ \hline Eicardial Adipose Tissue (EAT) & & & \\ \hline EAT End-systolic area (cm\({}^{2}\)) & 0.389 ** \(<\)** & \textless{}0.001 & 0.172 *, 0.016 & \textless{}0.167 *, 0.20 \\ EAT End-diastolic area (cm\({}^{2}\)) & 0.429 ** \(<\)** & \textless{}0.001 & 0.190 **, 0.008 & \textless{}0.168 *, 0.019 \\ \hline Pericardial Adipose Tissue (PAT) & & & \\ \hline PAT Area in 4-Chamber view (cm\({}^{2}\)) & 0.434 ** \(<\)** & \textless{}0.001 & NS & \textless{}0.331 ** \(<\) 0.001 \\ PAT End-systolic area (cm\({}^{2}\)) & 0.434 ** \(<\)** & \textless{}0.001 & NS & \textless{}0.296 ** \(<\) 0.001 \\ PAT End-diastolic area (cm\({}^{2}\)) & 0.432 **, \(<\)** & \textless{}0.001 & NS & \textless{}0.282 ** \(<\) 0.001 \\ \hline Total cardiac fat (EAT + PAT) & & & \\ \hline Total end-systolic area (cm\({}^{2}\)) & 0.458 ** \(<\)** & \textless{}0.001 & NS & \textless{}0.267 ** \(<\) 0.001 \\ Total end-diastolic area (cm\({}^{2}\)) & 0.443 ** \(<\)** & \textless{}0.001 & 0.145 *, 0.043 & \textless{}0.258 ** \(<\) 0.001 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* [PERSON]’s correlation was performed for parametric data, and [PERSON]’s correlation was conducted for nonparametric data. All variables are expressed as correlation coefficient r, _p_-value.
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed); *
* Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). \({}^{\text{a}}\) 5 age ranges were considered: less than 30, between 30 and 40, between 40 and 50, between 50 and 60, and older than 60; \({}^{\text{b}}\) male sex was assigned a value of 1 and female of 2. Age ranges were considered a continuous variable. A negative correlation indicates tendency towards males. BMI, Body mass index; NS, Not significant \(p\) \(>\) 0.05.  
\end{table} 
Table 3: Correlation between cardiac fat parameters and demographic characteristics. Figure 1: Area of EAT, PAT, and total cardiac fat stratified by sex and BMI, suggesting that sex may play more of a role in PAT than EAT, with higher deposition in males across all BMI groups. (**a**,**c**,**f**) illustrates the respective fat parameter within end-systolic phase, and (**b**,**d**,**g**) within end-diastolic phase. (**e**) illustrates PAT area in 4-chamber view. The box plots were generated by SPSS using the areas for EAT, PAT, and total cardiac fat with respect to sex and BMI. Within each sex group (male and female), box plots are colored according to BMI categories (normal, overweight, and obese, as shown in the top-left legend). Blue brackets on top of the box plots represent differences in EAT, PAT, and total cardiac fat within BMI categories in each sex group, whereas the green brackets represent differences in cardiac fat across sex within the same BMI group. * within the box represents \(p\) < 0.05 as measured by one-way ANOVA, independent samples T-test or Mann–Whitney U test; ** indicates \(p\) < 0.001; EAT, Epicardial adipose tissue; and PAT, pericardial adipose tissue.