Our patient was an 85-year-old man who had experienced an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in September 1990 and subsequently underwent the implantation of an automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator as part of the Cardiac Arrest in Seattle: Conventional versus Amiodarone Drug Evaluation (CASCADE) trial, as well as bypass surgery in Seattle, Wash. The defibrillator was placed abdominally....

Background—T-wave alternans (TWA) increases before ventricular tachycardia (VT) or fibrillation (VF), suggesting that it may warn of VT/VF in implantable cardioverter-defibrillator patients. Recently, we described a method for measuring alternans and nonalternans variability (TWA/V) from electrograms (EGMs) stored in implantable cardioverterdefibrillators before VT/VF. The goal of this prospect...

Axel Müller1, Thomas M. Helms2, Hans-Jürgen Wildau3, Jörg Otto Schwab4 and Christian Zugck5 1Klinik für Innere Medizin I der Klinikum Chemnitz gGmbH Bürgerstr. 2, D-09113 Chemnitz, 2Deutsche Stiftung für chronisch Kranke, Alexanderstraße 26, D-90762 Fürth, 3BIOTRONIK SE Co,Woermannkehre 1, D-12359 Berlin, 4Universitätsklinikum Bonn, Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik II, Sigmund-Freud-Str. 25, ...

BACKGROUND Sudden cardiac death remains a leading cause of mortality despite advances in medical treatment for the prevention of ischemic heart disease and heart failure. Recent studies showed a benefit of implantable cardioverter defibrillator implantation, but appropriate shocks for ventricular tachyarrhythmias were noted only in a minority of patients during 4 to 5 years of follow-up. Accord...

BACKGROUND Patients who receive implantable cardioverter defibrillator therapies are at higher risk of death versus those who do not. Programmed settings to reduce nonessential implantable cardioverter defibrillator therapies (therapy reduction programming) have been developed but may have adverse effects. This systematic review and meta-analysis assessed the relationship between therapy reduct...

From Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, N.C. (G.D.S.); the Department of Health Research and Policy, School of Medicine (M.A.H.), and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Department of Medicine (M.A.H., D.K.O.), Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.; and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, Calif. (D.K.O.). Address reprint requests ...

the implantable cardioverter defibrillator (icd) has currently become the standard treatment for preventing sudden cardiac death. there are some psychological consequences in patients with icd such as posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd) after the shocks induced by icd. this report aimed to present the case of a 54-year-old man with icd who had developed ptsd; his ptsd was treated, using cognit...

A 56 year old man with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator was admitted with chest pain and collapse. Erosion of the left ventricle by an epicardial patch was confirmed by thoracotomy, but surgical repair was impossible. This rare complication should be considered in patients with a history of cardioverter defibrillators implanted by thoracotomy.