Pulmonary embolisation of retained transvenous pacemaker electrode.

When removal of an endocardial pacemaker electrode became necessary in a patient with congestive myocardiopathy, it proved to be incarcerated. Therefore, a portion of it had to be left in site after cutting the external end of the pacing catheter. During follow-up examinations the electrode was seen to migrate in the large veins and finally was found embolized into a pulmonary artery. While there have been publications on the migration of retained pacemaker electrodes before, to our knowledge this represents the first case reported with pulmonary embolization of the migrating fragment.