Egami Y, Ukita K, Kawamura A, et al. - Researchers sought to create a new scoring system for predicting very late recurrences of atrial fibrillation (AF) (VLRAFs) following an initial catheter ablation (CA). For this purpose, they used postprocedural clinical data and reevaluated VLRAFs in 12-month patients’ condition using previously recognized preprocedural predictors of AF recurrences. A retrospective analysis was performed including 327 patients who received an initial CA with freedom from AF for over 12 months. In univariate and multivariate Cox proportional-hazards model, non-pulmonary vein foci, early recurrences of AF, atrial premature contraction (APC) burden ≥ 142/24 hours, and minimum prematurity index of the APCs ≤ 48% were shown to be related to VLRAFs post-CA. Finally, a novel scoring system was constructed to predict VLRAFs, the n-PReDCt score (non-pulmonary vein: 1 point, early recurrences of AFs (Recurrences of AF in early phase after CA): 1 point, APC bur den ≥ 142/24 hours: 1 point, and minimum prematurity index (= Coupling in t erval) of the APCs of ≤ 48%: 1 point). A significant link of n-PReDCt score with VLRAFs was shown by a Kaplan-Meier analysis in the discovery AF and validation AF cohorts.