We’ve covered cardiac electrophysiologist John Mandrola’s blogs on the subject of ICD lead problems before, for example when he succinctly brought us up to date with the state of play back at the beginning of April, here. This week he’s been at the Heart Rhythm Society’s conference and has sat through what sounds like a packed session including a particularly highly qualified group of speakers including the now famous Dr Robert Hauser. This was a special session convened at the conference, designed specifically to discuss St.Jude’s Riata lead problems and their implications for the cardiology professional, and not least the questionmarks that remain among some relating to the newer Durata leads, doubts which St.Jude would clearly rather go away, especially in view of the fact that the supporting data for the lead are unquestionably better than its predecessor.
John Mandrola’s blogpost features on theheart.org and is a very nice review of what sounds like a popular session. It can be found here.
His take-home from the session and the posters at the meeting, by the way, was that when it comes to ICD lead diameter, the evidence suggests that smaller is not better and that the quest for finer leads turns out to have been a misguided one.
Source: theheart.org
published: May 11, 2012 in: Cardio, Congresses and Meetings, St Jude