Study re-examines heart defibrillators

Moss

he implanted cardioverter defibrillator or I.C.D., a medical device that's become widely known, partly due to its use by Vice President Dick Cheney, saves lives most often in the sickest of patients, according to new research from the Medical Center.

The results of the study, published in a recent issue of the American Journal of Cardiology, represent a change in conventional thinking about how to treat severe heart disease, says Arthur Moss, author of the study and professor of medicine.

It had been believed that most patients who die of heart disease suffer from a progressive failure of the organ; the heart simply tires and stops pumping. In that type of case, an I.C.D. would not be a valuable treatment. However, the study found that more often patients die from an abrupt malfunction of the heart rhythm--a condition that can be treated by an implantable defibrillator.

"The bottom line is that the sickest patients receive the most benefits from I.C.Ds," says Moss. "The other side of that coin is that patients with chronic disease, who still have relatively good heart function, are not helped by defibrillators. This is important to note in that the number of new I.C.D. implants is increasing at a rate of more than 20 percent a year."

An I.C.D. monitors electrical signals in the body and detects abnormal heartbeats. It acts within seconds to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm, and if needed can deliver a more powerful jolt to take the place of an external defibrillator

Moss, who was consulted by Cheney's physicians prior to the vice president's surgery, estimates more than 150,000 patients worldwide are using implanted defibrillators, and nearly 50,000 new devices were implanted in the past year.

"The implantable defibrillator saves lives," says Moss, "and its current use is the outgrowth of basic biomedical research and clinical investigation that has taken place during the past 20 years."

Maintained by University Public Relations
Please send your comments and suggestions to:
Public Relations.