BACKGROUND Cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) improves outcomes in selected patients with heart failure and left ventricular dysfunction. One mechanism of benefit is believed to be favourable ventricular remodelling. Whether CRT also decreases the frequency of ventricular arrhythmias and risk of sudden death is unknown. OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of CRT on frequency of ventricular...

Until recently, randomized studies of implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) have only included patients with a remote history of myocardial infarction (MI). Two studies evaluated the use of ICDs early following MI, the DINAMIT and BEST+ICD studies, but failed to demonstrate significant reduction in mortality. Current guidelines therefore recommend deferring ICD implantation for at least ...

The Subcutaneous Internal Cardiac Defibrillator (S-ICD) represents a major advance in the care of patients who have an indication for an internal cardiac defibrillator without pacing indications. Its main advantage is that it can deliver a shock to cardiovert ventricular arrhythmias utilising a tunnelled subcutaneous lead, negating the risks associated with conventional transvenous systems. Ini...

Unfortunately, the authors have missed our 2 publications on this topic which have been tested in a larger population of CD patients with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) (FECHA study) [2,3]. We included 98 patients from 14 centers in Latin America, all of them with CD cardiomyopathy and an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). The mean follow-up was 33±20 months. Mean LV...

According to the current guidelines, patients with ischaemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) or non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy (NICM) at risk for sudden cardiac death should undergo implantation of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). Although ICDs effectively terminate ventricular arrhythmias, the arrhythmogenic substrate remains unchanged or may progress over time, resulting in recurrent ICD s...

We report the case of a 54-year-old patient with repetitive inappropriate implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) shocks due to externalized pace-sense conductor cables of a Biotronik Linox SD 65/16 ICD lead. This case report is one of few in the literature describing inappropriate shocks due to insulation failure with externalization of conductor cables of an ICD lead from the Biotronik L...

T wave oversensing (TWOS) is a common cause of inappropriate implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapies. Various algorithms to avoid inappropriate ICD therapy are available; however, they are not helpful to avoid TWOS. Although the reproduction of TWOS is useful to resolve the problem of TWOS, it is sometimes difficult to reproduce TWOS. We report two cases of inappropriate ICD ther...

he implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) reduces mortality when used for primary or secondary prevention of sudden cardiac death in patients at high risk for life-threatening arrhythmias. In the era of singlechamber ICD, atrial fibrillation (AF) was the most common cause of inappropriate shocks, responsible for up to 62% of these.1 The issue still constitutes a major challenge, even afte...

We treated a patient with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and sustained ventricular tachycardia by an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). He then suffered from inappropriate ICD shocks triggered by paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF). We successfully performed pulmonary vein orifice isolation to eliminate paroxysmal AF. The pulmonary vein orifice isolation was a simple and useful procedu...

AIMS International guidelines advocate an implantable cardioverter and defibrillator (ICD) in patients with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) to prevent sudden death (SCD). Previous data suggest that the benefit of ICD therapy in real life may be lower than expected from the results of controlled studies and side-effects are not negligible. It is also unclear whether women benef...