New York (ISJ) ? An Indian origin doctor successfully developed world?s first wireless pacemaker. Dr. Vivek Reddy of The Mount Sinai Hospital presented the one-year finding of the path-breaking device at the annual scientific session of the Heart Rhythm Society at San Francisco on May 9.
Dr. Reddy evaluated 32 patients with a slowed heartbeat, on whom the leadless pacemaker was implanted at two hospitals in Prague and one in Amsterdam. The findings reveals, the leadless pacemaker?s performance is comparable to conventional pacemakers. Its pacing thresholds (0.43 volts) and sensing (10.32 mV) are equivalent to those in traditional pacemakers and there was no experience of infections or failure to sense, pace or communicate with the pacemaker.
?This is the first time we have seen one-year follow-up data for this innovative, wireless cardiac pacing technology and our results show the leadless pacemaker is comparable to traditional pacemakers,? said Dr. Reddy, who is the study?s co-investigator and Chairman of its Steering Committee. ?Our latest findings further support the promising performance and safety of this minimally-invasive, non-surgical pacing device.? Dr.Reddy is a leading cardioelectrophysiologist in the United States.
The miniature-sized, leadless cardiac pacemaker is placed directly inside a patient’s heart without surgery during a catheter-guided procedure through the groin via the femoral vein. The device, resembling a tiny, metal silver tube and smaller than a triple-A battery, is only a few centimeters in length, making it less than ten percent the size of a traditional pacemaker. It works by closely monitoring the heart’s electrical rhythms and if the heart beat is too slow it provides electrical stimulation therapy to regulate it.
Dr. Reddy was the first to implant the leadless pacemaker in the United States at The Mount Sinai Hospital, with the launch of a multi-centre clinical trial. He now plans to test the device more widely for safety and efficacy in 670 patients at 50 centres across the US and Canada.
However, in Europe the study has been halted, until further validations after the reports of six perforations, including two deaths.
More than 4 million patients globally have a pacemaker, and 700,000 new patients receive one each year.
