Reducing cardioverter-defibrillator shock administration by antitachycardia pacing during device charging.

Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator Shock Despite Termination of Ventricular Tachycardia by Antitachycardia Pacing During Charging

Antitachycardia pacing to terminate ventricular tachyarrhythmia: new insights into how to reduce painful implantable cardioverter defibrillator shocks.

This editorial refers to ‘Safety and efficacy of programming a high number of antitachycardia pacing attempts for fast ventricular tachycardia: a prospective study’ by R.P. Martins et al., on page 1457 and ‘First inappropriate implantable cardioverter defibrillator therapy is often due to inaccurate device programming: analysis of the French OPERA registry’ by A. Leenhardt et al., on page 1465

Images in Cardiology

A 75 year-old man with a Biotronik Lumax VR-T540 uncommitted implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) received a shock during general anesthesia for the resection of a basal cell carcinoma on the nose. The surgeon who was unaware of the ICD, used unipolar electrocautery during the procedure. No ICD parameters were reprogrammed preoperatively and the device remained programmed as follows: Lo...

Ventricular Fibrillation Terminated by the Seventh Shock

A 49-year-old man consulted our department 3 months after having several implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) shocks with subsequent syncope. A CRT-D device (Boston Scientific, Cognis 100-D) and a single-element subcutaneous array (Medtronic, model 6996 SQ) had been implanted 2 years previously for primary prevention of sudden cardiac death caused by symptomatic (New York Heart Associat...

Termination of Ventricular Tachycardia with Antitachycardia Pacing after Ineffective Shock Therapy in an ICD Recipient with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) implantation is the only established therapy for primary or secondary prevention of sudden cardiac death in patients with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM). Ineffectiveness of shock therapy for the termination of potentially fatal ventricular arrhythmias in ICD recipients is rare in the presence of appropriate arrhythmia detection by the device. We r...