Inappropriate shock due to residual air in subcutaneous implantable cardiac defibrillators is not a well-known complication. Obtaining overpenetrated X-rays, recognizing electrocardiogram findings, limiting blunt finger dissection, and switching to sense at another vector are techniques which might lead to avoidance of unnecessary wound exploration or device removal.

Sudden cardiac death usually occurs secondary to a ventricular tachyarrhythmia. Even under ideal circumstances only 20% of patients who have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survive to hospital discharge. Therefore, aggressive treatment and screening of high-risk patients are mandatory to improve survival rates. Risk stratification of high-risk patients, such as the post-myocardial infarction ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) safety in patients with an epicardial cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED) is uncertain. To assess the and adverse effects of MRI who had surgically implanted CIED. Patients CIEDs underwent between January 2008 2021 were prospectively studied two clinical centers. All close monitoring through procedures. Outcomes compared CIED group matched transvenous g...

Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) are state of the art devices for the primary and secondary prevention of sudden cardiac death.1 As a result, the use of ICDs has increased remarkably over the past years. Since they are life saving devices and because dysfunction can cause fatal pro-arrhythmia2, monitoring of their proper functioning is vital for patient welfare. To date, convention...

Increased use of ICDs in patients with cardiac disease has the potential to strain national health care budgets because of the large numbers of eligible patients and the high cost of the ICDs. Randomized trials show ICDs increase life-expectancy in some groups of patients and also increase total medical costs significantly. ICDs exemplify the role of new technology as the main force behind risi...

OBJECTIVES We sought to evaluate the cost implications of the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), using utilization, cost, and survival data from the Multicenter Automatic Defibrillator Implantation Trial (MADIT)-II. BACKGROUND This trial showed that prophylactic implantation of a defibrillator reduces the rate of mortality in patients who experienced a previous myocardial infarction ...

Utilization of cardiac implants such as pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators is now commonplace among heart disease patients. The ever-increasing technological complexity of these devices is matched by the near omnipresent exposure to electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields (EMFs), both in everyday life and the occupational environment. Given that electromagnetic interf...

In this issue of the Journal, Mitchell et al. (1) report that lipid-lowering therapy (LLT) was associated with a 36% relative risk reduction (RRR) in all-cause mortality in patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD) enrolled in the Antiarrhythmics Versus Implantable Defibrillator (AVID) trial. This rivals the benefit observed for implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) over amiodarone th...

Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators are complex technical devices with a multitude of programming options for the physician. In recent years, numerous randomized trials have been performed to define the optimal programming strategies and have provided valuable insights, especially in primary prevention patients. This article provides an actual overview on the existing evidence on the most i...