Study shows defibrillators save lives

he same treatment given last summer to address Vice President Dick Cheney's heart condition, may save more lives than doctors once thought, according to Arthur Moss, professor of medicine. A new study led by Moss shows that implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) increase survival rates for heart attack survivors by 31 percent.

"This is an important and major contribution to the field, as it sets new standards for therapy to save lives and improve survival," says Moss. "Currently there is no other preventive treatment for people at risk of dying suddenly from heart rhythm disorders."

The research, presented in March at the American College of Cardiology's 2002 meeting in Atlanta, is the first to show the preventive value of the ICD, a medical device about the size of a pager, that is surgically implanted in the chest under local anesthesia. The device detects irregular and potentially fatal heartbeats and shocks the heart back into a normal rhythm.

Introduced about 20 years ago, ICDs had been prescribed only for a small group of patients who had survived a cardiac arrest. Moss estimates the treatment could help about 400,000 new patients annually.

"It's like having your own personal coronary care unit," Moss says. "No other single therapy for this population has been shown to reduce mortality by nearly one-third. The last breakthrough of this magnitude was the introduction of beta-blockers in the 1970s."

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