Termination of Ventricular Tachycardia by an Implantable Atrial Pacemaker and External Pacemaker Activator |
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Authors: | AKIHIRO TANABE HIDEO IKEDA MASUAKI FUJIYAMA YOH-ICHIRO FURUTA JUN MATSUMURA JUN OHBAYASHI FUMIHIKO UTSU HIRONORI TOSHIMA |
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Institution: | 3rd Department of Internal Medicine and the Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, Kurume University School of Medicine, Fukuoka. Japan |
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Abstract: | An atrial pacemaker was implanted in a patient who had dilated cardiomyopathy, sinus node dysfunction, and drug-resistant ventricular tachycardia (VT). VT episodes were terminated by atrial overdrive pacing using an implanted pacemaker and a newly developed hand-held external programmer/transmitter. Although successful cases of termination of intractable VT by ventricular pacing have recently been reported, the ventricular method might increase the risk of accelerating VT. Atrial overdrive pacing is a safer method since it minimizes the possibility of tachycardia acceleration and, combined with antiarrhythmic drugs, it appeared to be a unique and useful approach for the treatment of drug-resistant VT. |
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Keywords: | programmable pacemaker atrial overdrive pacing drug-resistant ventricular tachycardia |
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