ORIGINAL ARTICLES  CARDIAC SECTION 

The Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery 2009 December;50(6):801-6

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Biventricular pacing concomitant to on-pump heart surgery: a case series

Golzio P. G. ¹, Anselmino M. ¹, Comoglio C. ², Vinci M. ¹, Rinaldi M. ², Trevi G. P. ¹ ✉

¹ Cardiology Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Turin, Turin, Italy 2 Cardiac Surgery, Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

AIM: The aim of this paper was to report the authors’ experience on biventricular epicardial pacing (BEP) as first-choice procedure concomitant to on-pump heart surgery for other definite indications.
METHODS: BEP was performed in 13 consecutive patients with stage IV heart failure (HF) undergoing on-pump cardiac surgery for other definite indications. All patients were treated with optimized pharmacologic therapy, and showed complete left bundle RESULTS: In all patients, effective BEP was achieved. All patients were discharged alive; functional, ECG and echocardiographic parameters showed significant improvement, better observed at 4-month interval. However, a high mortality rate was noticed during follow up (about 70% at 6 months) with a significant number of sudden cardiac deaths. The absence of functional improvement in the mid-term period (4-month control) related to a poor prognosis.
CONCLUSIONS: Epicardial lead placement during cardiac surgery of severe HF patients is safe and effective. A clear evaluation of the effect of BEP alone is precluded because of the interference of the concomitant indications for cardiac surgery and the absence of randomization. The high rate of sudden death noticed in this study raises the important question of whether implantation of a defibrillator would be warranted in such population.